Reagan was born on June 2, 2016, only 4 hours after his due date. Everything with the pregnancy went according to plan and he was born healthy and everything was perfect until Wednesday, June 22. Reagan started to get fussy and seemed like he was in pain when he was sleeping. This was not like him. He never really cried unless he was being changed.
Reagan cried and whimpered that Wednesday from 7pm to about 12am. We tried everything, gas meds, car ride, etc. Nothing worked. We finally tried Tylenol and it seemed to help. He then fell asleep on me where he slept all night. He went about 5 hours without eating. I wasn't worried about the amount of time he didn't eat because I honestly figured he needed the sleep and I didn't know, as a new mom, that newborns should be eating every 2-3 hours. When he woke up he was crying hard and scrunching his face as if he were in a great amount of pain. Brandon and I began to problem shoot again. Was it my diet? Was it the antibiotic I was on? We were at a loss and he continued to cry and moan in his sleep.
I took him to the pediatrician on Thursday. Nothing was found to be out of the ordinary there. He ate a good amount and then we went home. The pediatrician suggested that it could be from the medication I was on and suggested that we supplement with formula until the medication was out of my system. I did not agree and chose to continue to breastfeed.
Later that day he was slightly fussy when awake, but seemed to be a little better. Thursday night he ate normally, about every three hours or so, but that changed after his 5:30am feeding. He didn't want to eat again when I tried at 8:30 and cried/whimpered a lot. He went six hours without eating and ate again at 11:30am. I didn't like this long span so I contacted the lactation consultant and went in for a consult at 1:15. She picked him up out of his car seat and thought he felt hot so we took his temperature and sure enough he had a fever. We immediately took him downstairs to the ER and his fever was up to 103.1. They immediately started running tests. He was septic and there were traces of bacteria in his spinal tap which was a huge red flag. His glucose level was <1 when it should have been between 40 and 70. This was extremely alarming because the brain needs glucose to function. We were transported by ambulance to Albany Med.
When we got to AMC I tried to feed him breast milk from a bottle and he took about an ounce. They told me I could hold him to feed him, but seconds later a doctor noticed what seemed to be a seizure. I didn't want to believe it at first, but he had another soon after. They then told me I could no longer hold or feed him and put him in the hospital bed and started to hook him up to every machine possible. During this process, he then started to have short rapid breaths which prompted them to send me out of the room and they began to place in the breathing tube. My tiny baby was only about 8lbs at the time and seeing him like that was devastating.
— Amanda Caldwell, USA
Special thanks to Amanda for sharing her family's GBS journey! Read their very special story and watch their video on ABC7NY.com by clicking here.
Amanda is also working with local hospitals on getting information out to parents in different forms and has a Facebook awareness page at GBS/Strep B Streptococcus: Reagan's Journey. Her blog on "What Life Is Like After Having My Son Fight for His Life in the ICU" can be read here.
Amanda is also working with local hospitals on getting information out to parents in different forms and has a Facebook awareness page at GBS/Strep B Streptococcus: Reagan's Journey. Her blog on "What Life Is Like After Having My Son Fight for His Life in the ICU" can be read here.
