Monday, March 07, 2005

The twins "1 year" Dr visit!

I took the girls in to our family doctor for their 1 year check up. Dr. V/S is very happy with them developmentally. Both girls are crawling, pulling to standing, and babbling.

I forgot their head circumferences and lengths - but both girls are within 1/2 cm of each other on both and right at the 50th% for adjusted age of 11 months. The girls are 13 months actual age tomorrow.



Megan weighs 19 lbs 13 oz - which puts her at just under 50% for adjusted age in weight as well. Megan loves solids and drinks iron-fortified formula - which we're advised to continue a least until she is 1 year adjusted age before switching her to whole milk. Though the Dr. said it would probably be better to keep both girls on formula until around 18 months.



Maribeth's weight is of concern. She is just over 16 lbs and has dropped down on the charts again - so even for adjusted age of 11 months just is off the bottom of the charts. Plus the Dr. said usually they stop adjusting at 1 year. So for actual age - she is WAY off the bottom. So this is concerning. Esp. wtih her being now the same height as Megan.

So I will have to bring Maribeth in a month from now for another weight check. If she isn't at least back on the chart by then - we will be referred back to the pediatrician/neonatologist to check for things like possible anemia or continued mild reflux (GERD). Maribeth was taken off the reflux medication back around Christmas and that's around the time she started falling off her growth curve - so our family doctor thinks that might be related. (The lowest she's been even pre-natally was 3% and back at 8 months was up to 10% for adjusted age for weight). So it's a pretty steep down-curve.

Also Maribeth stopped nursinng a week or two ago - so she is on iron fortified infant formula as well. We are going to continue that for her but if she doens't start gaining more by next month - then we've been told the pediatrician will likely want her on something more high calorie than regular formula. I'm not to try and force feed her or stuff her - but to try and feed her calorie-rich foods. No water or juice just formula to drink. Butter on her bread bits and so on. Part of the problem is likely that Maribeth won't allow us to feed her baby foods - she will only eat what she can pick up herself and she definitely eats less solids overall than Megan.



Poor Maribeth also has a yeast diaper rash, a bad cold and cough, AND ears that look iffy. I've got a prescription for antibiotics for her if she doesn't improve in the next 24-48 hours.

We were also recommended to delay the MMR vaccine for another few months so it will be more effective and she recommended getting the chickenpox vaccine at the same time as the MMR even though they already had chickenpox because they had it under one year of age and might not have lifelong immunity and the govn't is now providing chickenpox vaccines free of charge. That I'm really not sure about.

1 comment:

Gail at Large said...

Poor Maribeth... calorie-rich foods, huh? That seems about all that's on the menus in these parts. On Saturday at Molly Maguire's we had every variant of potato and cheese: perogies with onions and butter, a soup with THREE different kinds of cheese melted into it plus sausage, french fries that arrived with my sandwich, and David's potato pancakes...

How about putting Nutella on her bread?