Starting continuous drip feedings of breast milk

The doctors are going to start Jac on continuous drip feedings of breast milk this morning. The drip will be 2 ml per hour - so 48 ml per day. They will check his aspirate (his tummy contents) every 4 hours, when they change the milk in the pump, to see if he is tolerating the feedings, and moving the milk out of his tummy.

Dr. T think it is important to start the continuous feeds and to increase the volume of milk he is getting because the blood tests from this morning show that his liver function is starting to be impacted by the continuous TPN feedings be has been receiving. She said they will change the composition of his TPN a bit to decrease the impact on his liver and hope that he tolerates the feeding so they can start to wean the TPN. She said full feedings for a little guy of his size is around 80 ml / day so approximately 3.5 ml / hour - and they are going to start him at 2 ml / hour and see how he does.

I asked her if it made sense to start this before we get him off the CPAP, which is putting air in his belly, and potentially making it harder for him to digest. She said that it does because the air does not necessarily make it more difficult for him to digest, and that it is really important to get started and wean his TPN because preemies his age frequently show liver problems around his age (16 days) if they stay on TPN.