Hi everyone.
Well, another day of firsts. This time I’ll start with Jade.
She’s still doing great but has a little Apnea (interrupted breathing). This is very common for premies (I think it’s official name is ‘Apnea of Prematurity?’). Anyway it basically means that she can slow down or stop breathing for short periods (5 seconds?) which lowers her heart rate and, of course, her oxygen level in her blood. Not a good thing, but the nurses are prepared (They seem to be prepared for anything).
We were asked by the nurses whether we would like to participate in a study of a med that they have commonly given premies with Apnea but it’s never been officially recommended as a treatment for the condition. So, this study (put on by McMaster U) aims to find out what the long term effects are, if any, to using a specific medication called Caffeine Citrate to treat Apnea. The decision that we seemed to be faced with if we were on the study then there was a 50/50 chance that the medication that the study provided was Not Caffeine Citrate (which is what they would normally use anyway) but rather a Placebo (which is basically just salty-water, does nothing so that the study has a “control” group to compare against).
So I asked the nurse what would happen if they found that the Study medication that they were giving Jade wasn’t working?? Well, of course she reassured me that there were lots of other medications and techniques to help Jade through her Apnea. So that was reassuring. She also reassured us that they wouldn’t be giving the drug any more or less than they would if we weren’t participating. So we’ve decided to help out science a little and Jade will participate in the study.