Nine Months - Medical Update

Now that the holidays are behind us, our appointment schedule is picking back up again.  Clara had physical therapy yesterday and her nine month check up this morning.   Clara seemed to have a little growth spurt the week before Christmas and the combination of that along with lots of attention during our week at Beech Mountain seems to have translated into a huge burst of gross motor development.  She has not only fully mastered crawling, but is pulling up on any and every thing in sight.  She’s cruising along furniture, standing with just one hand and reaching in all directions, going from standing to sitting with great control and even standing completely on her own for a second or two.  Her core strength, control and coordination have just improved dramatically.

I knew that Cindy (our PT) would be surprised at all of Clara’s progress in such a short time.  She was thrilled!  It’s been six months since we started PT now and so she re-administered the AIMS (Alberta Infant Motor Scale) assessment to determine where Clara is with her gross motor skills at this point.  No surprise, she’s at 50th percentile for her age!  Anything above 10th percentile would have been considered great, but we’re so thrilled that she is where she is.  We’re mighty proud of this hard worker.  So, she no longer has a developmental delay and no longer has torticollis.  We still want to increase her core strength and her neck some, but she will likely be exited from PT very soon!

This morning we went for our monthly synegis shot (RSV vaccine) and her nine month checkup.  She weighed in at 18 pounds, up 12 ounces in a month.  That’s the 36th percentile for weight, and about where Clara has been the past couple of months.  Her length is 28 inches (67th percentile) and head is 18cm (91st percentile).  The doctor was very pleased with this growth.  I know that the continued weight gain (albeit with enormous effort on my part) is a big part of the gross motor success, too.  They’re certainly closely related.  But it’s motivating to keep working hard on both feeding and her core strength exercises when we have such a positive office visit.

We have been feeding Clara during the night some (once at 11PM before we go to bed and once in the early morning before she wakes up).  I just dropped the early morning feed last week and the doctor has told us to go ahead and try dropping the night time feed, too.  Hopefully Clara will eat/drink enough the rest of the day to make up for those feedings and we’ll all get a little more sleep at night!  Most of all, the doctor was incredibly affirming of the hard work that we’ve put into both feeding and protecting Clara from germs during the winter thus far.  She and I will both be relieved when March rolls around and we’re through the cold and flu season and Clara is also old enough to begin transitioning away from breast milk.

We head back to feeding therapy on Monday.  I’m pleased with our progress there, too.  I hope the speech pathologist will agree!

Thanks for your continued prayers for Clara’s health and growth and for being concerned about her development.  We’re thankful for you!