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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – The earliest that a baby born prematurely is given a chance to survive usually is at 24 weeks gestation. Jaxon Lee McLaughlin was born at 24 weeks and two days.
After spending the first five and a half months of his life in the Renée Schine Crown Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Rush University Medical Center, Jax, as he’s known, now is happy and healthy. “He’s babbling and grabbing,” says his mother, Mary McLaughlin.
As Jax’s story illustrates, major advances in neonatology – care for premature infants – have made it possible to save the lives of babies who would not have survived until recently. For example, one study found that in just three years (2009 to 2012) the survival rates for babies in the United States born at 23 weeks improved from 27 percent to 33 percent.
March for Babies on April 24
These sorts of advances have been made possible in part by the March of Dimes, a nationwide charity organization that supports research, education, advocacy and other efforts to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality.
“All the money that’s gone to research, all the things they’ve discovered about micro-preemies (babies born before 26 weeks gestation) is obviously what’s saved his life,” says Mary, who is Rush’s ambassador to the March for Babies, the annual fundraiser for the March of Dimes. The Chicago March will take place this Sunday, April 24, in Grant Park.
Rush has been participating in the March for Babies since 2002 and has raised more than $90,000 to date. This year, Rush’s March for Babies team is aiming to include 100 walkers and raise $15,000. (You can pledge a contribution in support of a team member or sign up for the team yourself on the Rush team page.)
“Rush has a tent and food, the families bring their babies, and everybody walks together. It’s a good time,” says Megan E Presutti, MSN, RNC-NIC, the captain of Rush’s March for Babies team. “What I love about this cause is they support all babies and moms, not just the premature ones.”
‘The sweetest sound I’ve ever heard’
A nurse in Rush’s neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU for short, Presutti was part of the team that cared for Jax after his sudden, unexpected and perilous birth. On Jan. 4, 2015, Mary woke at about five in the morning with severe abdominal pain. “I had a lot of nausea with Jax, so at first I assumed it was an upset stomach,” she says.
When the pain continued for several hours, Mary and her husband, Justin McLaughlin, started getting ready to go to the hospital. Mary was standing in her kitchen, waiting for her sister to come watch their 18-month-old son, when her water broke. “That’s when we both went into complete panic mode,” she says.
Justin took Mary to their local community hospital, where doctors planned to give her steroids – which help improve premature babies’ chances of survival – and to transfer her to Rush. They didn’t have time for either.
Mary began hemorrhaging and was rushed into the operating room for an emergency Cesarean section. “We were told that if he made it through delivery he had a 50/50 shot of survival,” she says.
Jax was delivered around 10 a.m. “I heard a small little whimper, which was the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard. I knew he was alive,” Mary says.
As if still in the womb
A transport team had arrived by then, and Jax was taken by ambulance to Rush. After one night in the hospital, Mary headed to Rush to be with him.
“I was supposed to stay two days, but I told one of the nurses before the doctors came in, ‘I don’t know if my child’s going to make it, and I’m not going to be an hour and a half away if something’s happening,'” she says. “Rush was a little stunned that I was there so quickly.”
Jax was kept in an isolette, an incubator that allowed his care team to control the temperature and humidity. “We have to treat them like they’re still in utero,” Presutti says. Monitors attached to him tracked his breathing, heartbeat, temperature and other vital signs.
He was so fragile at first that his parents couldn’t even rub his skin. “We had to barely touch it,” Mary says. “His skin was still transparent.”
Because his lungs hadn’t developed to the point where he could breath on his own, Jax was kept on a ventilator, which was put on a high setting. He was fed through a tube passed through his mouth directly into his stomach.
Even though he wasn’t able to nurse, Jax still was fed his mother’s milk. “I was pumping breast milk like crazy because it felt like it was the only thing I could do to help,” Mary says. In addition, he received a high-nutrient solution known as TPN.
‘He wasn’t going to give up easy’
Jax was born 12 inches long weighing 1 pound and 12 ounces, and he lost 6 ounces at first. “He was so tiny. I couldn’t believe that he was alive so small,” Mary says.
When tests showed his white blood cell count was abnormally high, causing his doctors to fear he had an infection, Jax underwent exploratory surgery. The surgical team found Jax had scar tissue on his intestine, which they removed, reattaching the intestine afterward.
“It was amazing to see after the surgery how much it was affecting him,” Mary says. “He started putting on more weight. It really went up from there.” Jax’s ventilator settings also were reduced, and five weeks after he was born, Mary and Justin were able to hold their son for the first time.
“He was a fighter. You could tell he wasn’t going to give up easy,” Presutti says. “He led his own care. Every baby that’s small, they’re kind of the boss, they tell us when they’re ready for the next thing.”
Crying because he couldn’t
That fight took a heavy emotional toll on Mary, who stayed at a guest facility near Rush so she could be with her son every day. “It was non-stop crying,” she says.
She cried, in part, because Jax couldn’t. Mary remembers vividly walking down the hallway of the NICU and hearing other babies crying. “I started bawling, because all I wanted was to hear him cry, but he would open his mouth and nothing would come out.”
Finally, seven or eight weeks after Jax was born, Mary got to hear him cry. “It was the most pathetic little whimper,” she says. Still, when a nurse called to her to come hear him, Mary rushed to Jax’s side and took him from the isolette just to hear it.
On May 15, 2015, 20 days past Jax’s original due date, Mary and Justin took their son home. Although his physical development was delayed, and his left side was weaker than his right, Jax has been receiving physical therapy and has made improvement.
“Considering what the kid’s been through,” she says, “I think he’s doing amazing.”