NeoSure vs EnfaCare

           VS

So like a lot of mom's that have new baby's in the NICU I pumped my breast milk and froze it for him to have when he could finally eat. Every three hours I headed off to the pumping room for 6 weeks. It was horrible. It was hard to keep my milk with just pumping plus that was time away from Dakota. I knew that I needed to do it so he could have the milk aka "liquid gold" in the hospital. It is the best thing for baby's especially the babies who have a rough start. So I did it. My milk lasted for 6 weeks. Then we switched to "preemie formula". The formula is fortified with extra calories and vitamins to help them gained much needed weight. There are two brands out there, NeoSure and EnfaCare. We used both with Dakota. Our insurance paid for some at the beginning when he came home on a feeding tube. That was nice let me tell you. It is more expensive just like everything else is with a preemie baby. Dakota did ok on both as far as digesting it. The taste was not that big of an issue obviously at first because it went straight into his stomach through the tube in his nose. But when we were trying to teach him how to eat from a bottle the hospital let him try both. It ate so much better when it was the NeoSure. So that is what we used in the hospital and when he first got home. Then when we ran out of what the insurance paid for and went to the store and found out that NeoSure was more expensive we thought we might give EnfaCare another try since it was mostly a taste issue he had before. He did just fine on the EnfaCare and that is what he stayed on until he was one. What one do you use? Why do you like it? Does the cost play a factor in why you use it?

Preemie News

From The Sunday Times

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October 22, 2006

Brief life of premature babies may go unmarked

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Sarah-Kate Templeton, Health Correspondent

BABIES born alive at less than 22 weeks gestation should be treated as if they had never existed, even if they breathe, move or their heart beats, a report by a royal college is expected to say.
Guidelines drawn up by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) are expected to recommend that babies born alive before 22 weeks are not routinely issued with a birth certificate.
Doctors say that even if babies born at less than 22 weeks show signs of life, they are extremely unlikely to survive, so their short existence should not be recorded.
About 300 babies are born every year below 22 weeks. The babies survive for only a few minutes and often die in their parents’ arms. While most of these cases are extremely premature births, they also include up to 50 babies born alive after failed abortions.
The RCOG is expected to say that acknowledging that these babies have been born alive, and having to register the births, causes unnecessary suffering to mothers who wanted an abortion. It will say that babies born below 22 weeks are “pre-viable” and not capable of life.

Although very few babies born below 22 weeks are believed to have survived long-term in Britain, statistics have not been kept. At 22 weeks a couple of babies survive in the UK every year. By 23 weeks, 17% survive.
The suggestion not to count babies born below 22 weeks gestation would prove contentious. Dr Paul Clarke, a consultant neonatologist at Norfolk and Norwich University hospital, said: “I find this incredible and deeply disturbing. To pretend that any foetus was born dead when it was actually born with signs of life, no matter how small or immature, would be a grave deception.”
Professor Stuart Campbell, whose 3D ultrasound images of a foetus sucking its thumb at 14 weeks and opening its eyes at 18 weeks, shifted popular opinion on abortion, said society could not deny that babies younger than 22 weeks had been born alive. “If the foetus is making respiratory efforts, its heart is beating and it is moving its limbs then it is born alive. This seems like trying to deny the truth of what is happening,” said Campbell.
In stating that babies become viable at 22 weeks, the RCOG will also provoke further calls to end abortions for social reasons up to 24 weeks.
Dr Vincent Argent, medical director of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, is the latest abortion expert to add his support to lowering the upper limit. “It may be reasonable to drop the limit for social abortions from 24 to 22 weeks in view of the expected RCOG guideline on the pre-viable foetus,” said Argent.
Last year 875 late abortions were carried out at 22 and 23 weeks gestation, which would not be allowed if the cut-off point was reduced to 22 weeks.
Abortions would still be allowed up to birth if the baby had a severe disability or if the mother was in grave danger.

Preemie in the News

Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy  -  almost four months early.

They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211950/Premature-baby-left-die-doctors-mother-gives-birth-just-days-22-week-care-limit.html#ixzz0bmrJMhNa

 

This just breaks my heart. Being in the NICU you see so many babies come in after being born.  some so small and so fragile that do better then ones that were not as early as not as small. I understand the side of the doctors and the reasons for why they think this way. Some if not most of these babies will have some type of disability or issue later in as they grow up due to being born so early and so small. But I was a mom who was told by numerous doctors that it is advised to turn off the machines that the odds were to great of him being a baby the rest of his life. I was a mom who chose not to listen to them and to give my son every chance he could to fight in his battle for life. Some days well most days for those 3 months were terrifying of what we could expect him to do. My son now 3 1/2 was just found to be "Normal" with the School District and does not qualify for any type of Special Education assistance. He has some small issues that he has to deal with but he is here still fully participating in life as a healthy "normal" little boy.

 

What the medical guidelines say...

Guidance limiting care of the most premature babies provoked outrage when it was published three years ago.

Experts on medical ethics advised doctors not to resuscitate babies born before 23 weeks in the womb, stating that it was not in the child's 'best interests'.The guidelines said: 'If gestational age is certain and less than 23+0 (i.e at 22 weeks) it would be considered in the best interests of the baby, and standard practice, for resuscitation not to be carried out.'Medical intervention would be given for a child born between 22 and 23 weeks only if the parents requested it and only after discussion about likely outcomes.

The rules were endorsed by the British Association of Perinatal Medicine and are followed by NHS hospitals.

The association said they were not meant to be a 'set of instructions', but doctors regard them as the best available advice on the treatment of premature babies.More than 80,000 babies are born prematurely in Britain every year, and of those some 40,000 need to be treated in intensive care. The NHS spends an estimated £1 billion a year on their care.But while survival rates for those born after 24 weeks in the womb have risen significantly, the rates for those born earlier have barely changed, despite advances in medicine and technology.Medical experts say babies born before 23 weeks are simply too under-developed to survive, and that to use aggressive treatment methods would only prolong their suffering, or inflict pain.

The guidelines were drawn up by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics after a two-year inquiry which took evidence from doctors, nurses and religious leaders.But weeks before they were published in 2006, a child was born in the U.S. which proved a baby could survive at earlier than 22 weeks if it was given medical treatment.Amillia Taylor was born in Florida on October 24, 2006, after just 21 weeks and six days in the womb. She celebrated her second birthday last year.Doctors believed she was a week older and so gave her intensive care, but later admitted she would not have received treatment if they had known her true age.

Her birth also coincided with the debate in Britain over whether the abortion limit should be reduced.

Some argued that if a baby could survive at 22 weeks then the time limit on abortions should be reduced.

The argument, which was lost in Parliament, followed a cut to the time limit in 1990 when politicians reduced it from 28 weeks to 24 weeks, in line with scientific evidence that foetuses could survive outside the womb at a younger age.However, experts say cases like Amillia Taylor's are rare, and can raise false expectations about survival rates.Studies show that only 1 per cent of babies born before 23 weeks survive, and many suffer serious disabilities.