Hi everyone! We recently got some medical information on the baby we will be adopting. I am concerned because his Apgar is recorded as 5/6 and his birthweight was 5 pounds. This concerns us because the two factors combined point to either a premature birth or complications during labor and delivery. Any insight? I doubt we will be able to get much more information until we are at the babyhouse...and you know how hard that will be. Thanks!!!
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
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I can't really give you advice as I'm just not familiar with the medical care in Russia.
But, I can tell you that Gabriella was 4lbs 7oz at 2 1/2 weeks old! She was also anemic. They don't do things like Apgar and I have no information at the time of her birth. But, she was most likely a preemie and as you can see from my blog, she's healthy as can be now(over 50th percentile for height and weight now and she wasn't on the charts in the beginning). They did have her on preemie formula for the first 4 months though. So, hopefully he got good care in the beginning.
Do you have a pediatrician lined up yet? You could send that info to him/her and ask an expert. That's what I would do. Are you getting a doctor out there to examine him? That was the best spent money during our trip one. I can't wait until you bring him home so we can get together. Do you have any idea when you are traveling yet?
My son also weighed 5 pounds at birth and had 7/8 Apgar. The children are all small and from my experience, 5 families adopting at the same time, 5 pounds was the norm. If you choose to have a medical, I think the MD will be more concerned about the head circumfernce than anything else. Good luck.
Grace weighed 5 lbs exactly at birth. They said she was premature. Her apgar was 7-8. I know you are concerned with these things, but really...you will know when you get there and see him. You will just know. Look at Grace now. You have followed her pictures. She is as healthy as ever. Your boy will thrive when he goes home with you!
My daughter weighed 5 lbs 13 oz when she was born. She was born 3 weeks early which is not considered preemie. The last 3 weeks all the baby does is gain weight. Everything is fully developed at that point. It is possible that your boy was the same way, just born a little early and so he was small. His apgar is not that far under range since 7 is considered normal. If you know his height, weight and head circumfernce I can put them in the system here at work to be sure it is all in line. (i work at a dr's office)
Apgar scores have no direct correlation to future development and health; they are used only to measure a newborn's condition and required medical procedures in the first few minutes after birth. A score under 3 indicates intervention is needed; as someone else mentioned, over 7 is considered average, so 5/6 is not bad.
As for birth weight, don't compare to American babies - 5 lbs is not proof of a pre-term baby. You have to remember that his birth mother most likely did not have great prenatal nutrition or care. Also if he is Kazakh or mixed, his birth mother and father could have been of smaller stature.
All children in orphanages have delays - if you are looking for a "perfect" child you will be very upset when you get there. But the vast majority of these kids do very well once they have good nutrition, medical care and loving parents.
Try to keep your faith and reflect on the reasons you decided to pursue adoption in the first place. Good luck.
Our son has Astana was also about 5 pounds at birth. No apgar scores since he was born at home.
With an adoption from Kaz you have the gift of having several months of measurements. Send the measurements to an IA, we used Dr Farber at CHOP, and they can advise you if there are any concerns.
In addition to being a premie, our little guy also had anemia and pneumonia shortly after birth. But looking at him now you'd never know it.
One of our sons(bio) was born with an apgar of 0/3. Not very good. He weighed over 8 lbs though. He had a lack of oxygen during birth. He was not breathing. His only problem now that he is five is a speech delay. We are so glad we have him with us.
D weighed 5 lbs 3 oz at birth. Apgar 7/7
She has done well.
Go with what the Iternational Adoption Specialist feels and your gut. If what they say is worst case is something you can deal with I say go for it.
If not, wait.
Only you can decide. But going on the birthweight only, I would not be worried.
I know that it might sound scary, but if his recent measurements show consistent growth, this is not too much to be concerned about....my daughter was born at 5 1/2 pounds also and apgar about the same....7 and above is great, but 5 is on the higher end....the thing we don't know is...do they only do one reading or two like in American....a apgar in the USA is done at one minute and then repeated like 5 minutes later and many kids reading goes up....I think if you can get recent weight and see that with his age you would have a better indication of his present health. We met our daughter at 9 1/2 months and she weighed 13 lbs....she is doing great and is 25 lbs now...very tall for her age. I know this is scary, but it sounds like he is good.
I brought one of my babies home at 4 pounds 13 ounces. She's doing great. Our boys we adopted were 2 1/2 and 3 pounds at birth. Granted, all of the above were twins. However, every single one of them is healthy and thriving. I say just pray about it and ask for peace one way or the other.
My son was 4 lbs, 9 oz when he was born. They have guessed he was about a month premature. No Apgar score. He is thriving wonderfully. Still on the smaller side, but developing as good as can be expected - he is 9.5 months right now (home for 2 months). We were told the water when he was born was green, meaning there was an infection, but nothing that we can see now. Best of luck!
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