Q: My baby born two months ago is suffering from tracheomalacia. He has been constantly kept on the ventilator (now CPAP) for more than 25 days. He still needs the support of CPAP to breathe and if the machine is removed he is unable to breath on his own. The doctors say that it should heal on its own. How many more days do we need to keep the baby in CPAP? If there is any possibilities medically, kindly let me know.

A:Tracheomalacia is condition where the wind pipe or the trachea has floppy muscles and flop with breathing movements. It would not respond to medicinal treatment but the good thing is it tends to get better with time, till that happens the child is likely to need support in the form of CPAP. How much time it is going to take is any body's guess! Since there is history of convulsions, I am sure doctors would have looked into the neurological status of the child to see if the difficulty in breathing is related to any brain involvement.