Hellobee Boards

no advice but just wanted to say that i hope everything turns out okay.

Hmmm.. I really have no idea when it comes to being pregnant with this but as a NICU nurse we see dilated bowel loops frequently on babies who we have concerns for GI wise. We follow with xrays ect and a lot of them turn out to be nothing and go away on their own so I am hopeful the same thing can happen in utero too. Hope it all works out!

I hope that nothing comes of it! I imagine the worst case scenario would be that your LO would need surgery to remove a section of their bowel (bowel resection). D had that when he got necrotizing enterocolitis and he had an ostomy bag for 9 weeks. Of course, I am not saying that's what will happen for you! We were in the NICU with a full term baby who wouldn't poop and they discovered they had a bowel obstruction, so one surgery later, he was out. Just wanted to provide some reassurance that even the "worst case" is a manageable outcome. Please wall me at any time if you want to talk more! Best of luck to you and your LO.

A lurker coming by to post because I had this situation. My DD had a congenital bowel obstruction (stenosis) that required surgery when she was 3 days old. In her case, it was not detected before birth because there was no dilation (I understand that sometimes there is dilation and sometimes there is not). If your LO does have it, it's good that they were able to detect it before birth so you can be prepared.

I understand your worry since I completely freaked about it when we found it. But as others have said, it is a relatively routine issue -- as one doctor put it to me -- a purely "mechanical" fix. The surgery was basically a bypass -- hook up another part of the bowel after the obstruction to the portion before the obstruction. My DD stayed in the NICU for 2 1/2 weeks after surgery but is now a thriving four-year-old. Though the experience was quite stressful for me and SO (particularly since we were not prepared for it), we have moved far past it. DD has no lasting effects from the surgery.

Let me know if you have any more questions I could answer!

@yellowbird: Yes, I live in a big city so I delivered at a hospital with a big children's hospital attached to it. They were well-equipped to do the surgery. If they hadn't, I'm sure they would have transferred her to one that could.

If you're worried about transferring to a different hospital, for what it's worth, I don't think this condition makes it difficult to transfer a baby. My DD was with me on the well-baby floor after delivery for two days, doing normal well-baby things, before anyone figured out what was wrong. The only visible symptom was she kept throwing up after I fed her and all the nurses kept telling me that her stomach was just a bit upset after delivery. They were wrong, but she was quite stable.

I hope you get answers and that it turns out to be a false alarm!