The NICU visit was short and sweet, and I am relieved that it went well and is over. I don't know why, but for 9 1/2 months I have been thinking about that appointment. At first it seemed so far away. They told us all about this developmental clinic within the first few days of Colt's life, and how it will continue to follow him until he is three years old. I think because they specialize in this particular area, whereas my physical therapist/pediatrician/teacher all do many things besides preemies, I was anxious because this is what they know. I thought maybe they would see something the others didn't, or know more about preemies since that is their sole purpose (they do check other high risk babies, though I am not 100% what else qualifies you for it other than prematurity). Anyhow, the appointment came so fast! I cannot believe that he's almost 6 months adjusted. It seemed like a million years away the first time we learned of the clinic.
We were seen by the nurse practitioner. She ran a bunch of little developmental tests: seeing if he would grab things, how he responds to voices, checked his reflexes, muscle tone, eyes, body, etc. She also asked us a million questions about him. Her verdict at the end of the appointment was that he looks great. Her only concerns were things we are already addressing with physical therapy, and she recommended that we step that up just to nip the problem in the butt now before it becomes a full fledged delay. I asked her how behind he was, and she said he isn't behind at all yet (for his adjusted age). She said he has full head control (this is news to me), his problem is that his neck muscles in the back are too tight which is causing him to pull his head forward rather than hold it elongated and up. He tucks his chin a bit, which we always thought was because he had a hard time holding it upright because of lack of strength. She showed us how she knows he has head control and why he is doing what he is doing. It all makes perfect sense now that we saw what she showed us. That is nice to know, because I have been really worried about the head control for a few reasons I never mentioned before. 1) the cerebellum is in charge of gross motor skills, ie. head control. His bleed was in the cerebellum, so I was terrified the bleed was what was causing the head control thing, and 2) it can be a sign of cerebral palsy (weak head control).
Long story short, I did outright ask her about cerebral palsy because it is something we were told to be aware of because of both prematurity and the brain bleed. She said that she sees nothing that would make her even think that he has that (which is not to say that anything could show up in future still). I've also asked my physical therapist about it numerous times, and she too says that he has not shown anything that would signal CP.
So basically we are going to step up the physical therapy to twice a week, and work more on stretching the neck muscles out and strengthening the trunk muscles for sitting. We'll start going to PT twice a week next week! We'll also be back to the NICU in three months for another check-up.
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