they told me she has staphylococcus aureus after culture, im in so much pain and distress, she seemed to do well, dirst they gave her (habaren?) im not sure of the spelling but this is how it sounded when the pronounced it, her two fingers were blue then black then only the tips were black, she was on habaren for 4-5 days i think? then they stopped it bcs it caused bleeding in the brain (first degree), she survived 11 days in nicu and ome day i came she wasn’t moving there were constantly monitoring her and they did cpr for 20 minutes before her passing away may her soul rest in peace, i’ll spare the details of how i feel rn i just want to know what went wrong? for context im not a U.S citizen and i’m not sure my country or the hospitals here are that best, i remember last thing the doctor told me is they were giving her two antibiotics and they’re both good, before that it was only one after havaren i just don’t remember it name, but on that day when she died it was the first te the doctor said anything about two antibiotics, she was also getting my breast milk and on that day they were supposed to start giving her 12 ml, but they stopped bcs her lungs started bleeding and idk, please tell me if this sound familiar to u and if the hospital did something wrong, i want closure.
my 27 week baby passed away due to infection
- Thread starter paulmalan
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katrina2017
New member
@paulmalan I'm sorry for your loss.
jcoliver75
New member
@paulmalan I'm so sorry for your loss.
Heparin is a blood thinner that is sometimes used as part of the treatment plan for staph infections. Some staph infections can be quite hard to treat as they are resistant to antibiotics. Neonates don't have much in the way of defenses against these kind of infections and unfortunately sometimes the doctors just can't get ahead of it no matter what they do.
Heparin is a blood thinner that is sometimes used as part of the treatment plan for staph infections. Some staph infections can be quite hard to treat as they are resistant to antibiotics. Neonates don't have much in the way of defenses against these kind of infections and unfortunately sometimes the doctors just can't get ahead of it no matter what they do.
@paulmalan I’m so sorry, sounds like she was given Heparin (a very common blood thinner) which led to complications (it increases the risk of bleeding). I am not a NICU professional so I’m not sure what could’ve happened. It’s possible the antibiotics were unrelated to the heparin and she was given the blood thinner for a different reason? I can’t imagine what you are going through, please take care of yourself & have a good support system, praying for you and your baby.
@robertina all they said to me is she had severe sepsis, it wasn’t severe the 10 days only on day 11 suddenly and out of nowhere it was severe
@paulmalan This unfortunately is very common with babies. If they develop sepsis, it often comes on fast and can be very deadly.
@paulmalan No. Sepsis is essentially a systemic blood infection, so the staph aureus most likely got into your baby's bloodstream and caused her to go septic. Depending on birth risk factors, your baby was most likely started on ampicillin and gentamicin right after birth due to infection risk. Do you know why you delivered early? That could also help explain why your baby was so sick.
jcoliver75
New member
@paulmalan The staph infection caused the sepsis. The body reacts to the infection, and this process causes inflammation throughout the body, unfortunately, sometimes this can cause damage to every system in the body, even things like organ failure. It's particularly hard on those that are already vulnerable.
This is not your fault and there's nothing you could have done differently.
This is not your fault and there's nothing you could have done differently.
@paulmalan I am so sorry for your loss.
My baby is not in the NICU but the cardiac ICU because he was born with a heart defect. He developed a staph blood infection through his central line 10 days after his open heart surgery (he was 14 days old). He has a shunt so what happened in his case was the staph caused his blood to clot which caused his shunt to clot off which ultimately caused his heart to stop. They gave him heparin to thin his blood to break the clots and only had to do CPR for about a minute before his heart started beating again. The team got blood cultures the day before his code because they started suspecting a blood infection and they started him on general antibiotics. As soon as the cultures came back positive they were able to give him antibiotics specific to staph and it cleared up.
My baby is not in the NICU but the cardiac ICU because he was born with a heart defect. He developed a staph blood infection through his central line 10 days after his open heart surgery (he was 14 days old). He has a shunt so what happened in his case was the staph caused his blood to clot which caused his shunt to clot off which ultimately caused his heart to stop. They gave him heparin to thin his blood to break the clots and only had to do CPR for about a minute before his heart started beating again. The team got blood cultures the day before his code because they started suspecting a blood infection and they started him on general antibiotics. As soon as the cultures came back positive they were able to give him antibiotics specific to staph and it cleared up.
mustangsvo
New member
@paulmalan I am so sorry for your loss.
katrina2017
New member
@paulmalan Try asking these questions in r/askdocs. There are some smart people in that subreddit. Good luck and I hope you’re able to find solace in knowing that you aren’t to blame for your daughter’s passing. Preemies don’t typically have it easy, unfortunately 
marykate1019
New member
@paulmalan I’m so sorry for your loss. My son had sepsis as well. He got super sick and the drs. Did not think he was going to make it. I cannot imagine your pain and I just want to say I’m sorry for your loss
dixieriderxx
New member
@paulmalan I’m so sorry for your loss.
If you don’t want to read the rest, by all means. I’m going to try to explain some of the medical stuff because it seems like maybe you didn’t understand what was happening.
What it sounds like is that she had a staphylococcus infection. When babies are born early, they are at high risk of infection. Almost always, this infection is nobody’s fault but a normal bacteria that wouldn’t make an adult or other person sick is a big deal to the teeny tinies.
NICU babies are pretty routinely started on antibiotics to try to prevent these infections from becoming a problem. Usually, they will start on “broad spectrum” antibiotics. In these babies it’s often ampicillin and gentamicin. One the results of cultures (that are drawn at birth) come back then sometimes they can go down to one antibiotic.
It sounds like you were told she had sepsis on day 2 of life so taking a good guess she was probably born with the infection.
Sepsis, by definition, is an infection that is in the blood. Regardless of where it started, sepsis means the infection is in the bloodstream. The treatment for sepsis is fluids in the IV and antibiotics.
Severe sepsis is when the body isn’t tolerating the sepsis and we have evidence of organ damage in the form of low blood pressure, high lactic acid levels, etc.
The discoloration of the fingers and toes comes from one of two things. Either from very low blood pressure (the body will naturally try to save the brain and heart and sacrifice extremities) or from blood clots.
Heparin (which is probably the drug you are talking about) is a blood thinner that is used to treat blood clots. She was either started on here because they thought maybe she had clots or she for sure had clots. Bleeding can be a side effect of the Heparin. Heparin is chosen before other blood thinners because it doesn’t stay in the system very long and is easy to reverse if there are bleeding complications.
There is a severe disorder in sepsis called DIC that causes clots. It isn’t predictable and can’t be prevented aside from treating the sepsis. There is a chance she had this, if she did DIC has a high mortality rate no matter what you do.
At the end of the day, it sounds like there are a lot of missing details. Based on the little information here, it doesn’t sound like anything was necessarily done wrong but just that she was very sick. I’m so sorry that you are going thru this.
If you don’t want to read the rest, by all means. I’m going to try to explain some of the medical stuff because it seems like maybe you didn’t understand what was happening.
What it sounds like is that she had a staphylococcus infection. When babies are born early, they are at high risk of infection. Almost always, this infection is nobody’s fault but a normal bacteria that wouldn’t make an adult or other person sick is a big deal to the teeny tinies.
NICU babies are pretty routinely started on antibiotics to try to prevent these infections from becoming a problem. Usually, they will start on “broad spectrum” antibiotics. In these babies it’s often ampicillin and gentamicin. One the results of cultures (that are drawn at birth) come back then sometimes they can go down to one antibiotic.
It sounds like you were told she had sepsis on day 2 of life so taking a good guess she was probably born with the infection.
Sepsis, by definition, is an infection that is in the blood. Regardless of where it started, sepsis means the infection is in the bloodstream. The treatment for sepsis is fluids in the IV and antibiotics.
Severe sepsis is when the body isn’t tolerating the sepsis and we have evidence of organ damage in the form of low blood pressure, high lactic acid levels, etc.
The discoloration of the fingers and toes comes from one of two things. Either from very low blood pressure (the body will naturally try to save the brain and heart and sacrifice extremities) or from blood clots.
Heparin (which is probably the drug you are talking about) is a blood thinner that is used to treat blood clots. She was either started on here because they thought maybe she had clots or she for sure had clots. Bleeding can be a side effect of the Heparin. Heparin is chosen before other blood thinners because it doesn’t stay in the system very long and is easy to reverse if there are bleeding complications.
There is a severe disorder in sepsis called DIC that causes clots. It isn’t predictable and can’t be prevented aside from treating the sepsis. There is a chance she had this, if she did DIC has a high mortality rate no matter what you do.
At the end of the day, it sounds like there are a lot of missing details. Based on the little information here, it doesn’t sound like anything was necessarily done wrong but just that she was very sick. I’m so sorry that you are going thru this.
happyplasticpe0ple
New member
@dixieriderxx This is an amazing response. I am a nicu doc, and am so sorry for everything you are going through, op. The only thing I will add to this is that DIC is a very unfortunate effect f sepsis, which paradoxically causes both bleeding and clotting. I only say this to mention that the bleeding complications could very likely be not from the heparin but from the DIC itself. Again, so sorry. This is the hardest thing I hope you’ll ever experience and I hope that your hospital is able to connect you to good resources (therapy for example) that can help you and your family in these times.
dixieriderxx
New member
@happyplasticpe0ple I agree 100%. Since she didn’t actually mention DIC I didn’t go into a lot of detail. DIC is such a terrible thing to watch.
freespirit3
New member
@paulmalan I am so so sorry for your loss.
Was your birth natural or c-section? What was the exact gestational age?
Was your birth natural or c-section? What was the exact gestational age?
@paulmalan I’m so sorry you lost your baby. My heart breaks for you 
fivequestions
New member
@paulmalan I'm so sorry for your loss