day 4 (long version)

- What's up with the PDA?

PDA detected via echocardiogram, moderate size. PDA is mostly expected in preemies. Standard treatment for UW Medical center is indecine. However other approaches include liquid restriction and ibuprofen. The indicine is up to 2 rounds of 3 courses of indecine. If the PDA doesn't resolve then surgery. While giving indicine they particular look for kidney issues - basically does he pee enough. If urine output is diminshed the treatment is discontinued.

- He had ultrasound to look for bleeds, mostly for baselining

No data here yet, didn't hear back on this yet.

- Can I hold him?

Not yet. lots of debate here. It's really hard to get a straight story as there's a lot of conflict among the medical professionals. There are basically two arguments:

1. baby is not stable, agitatated, etc. This could be visually or some system unhappy.
2. baby has an arterial line through his umbilical cord, if this comes out he could bleed out quickly.

The frustration here is that nurses, nurse practitioners and doctors all do not agree on the obviously qualitative interpretation of (1) nor on the real risk of (2). I've done my normal, presumably irritating, relentless asking of the same question to anyone who will listen.
The arterial line should go away generally between 7 & 15 days. So that will knock out (2) soon.
However, we learned yesterday that we can take his temperature and change his (insanely small) diaper. So this will go part way for this physical need to connect.

- Feeding

They really don't like to feed, near as I can tell with PDA. As far as I understand it, one impact of PDA is to flood the lungs with blood and therefore deny the gut of blood. So the baby probably wound't be good at digesting stuff.
Also the indicine treatment for PDA slows the kidneys. Also something not good to do when trying to feed the kid.