Newborn kitten is breathing hard

My cat had 6kittens 7days ago. The 4th one born is acting strange, yesterday I noticed she was breathing oddly because if you watched her stomach you could see she was breathing hard. She'll open her mouth and breath out of it, but that's rarely. All the other kittens are bigger than her and act normally. I thought it was the heat but it's morning now and she's still doing the breathing hard stuff. We got nothing kitten milk and gave some to her, and used a medicine thing. (Can't remember what it's called), she obviously didn't want to be handled so after we gave some to her we put her back with her mom.

A ashleykits

Do you see this kitten actively nursing?

I'm wondering if she is getting enough to eat, or whether she has an upper respiratory infection.

Can you weigh her? Are you able to get her to the vet to be checked?

We're able to take him to the vet, the 12th. I can't weigh him at the moment, but i have called a vet and explained the breathing to her. She said she doesn't exactly know what's wrong with him since she isn't with him and I should get him to a vet. For now she said I should feed him a bit but if he doesn't want to really eat, then leave him alone and to keep him warm and help him use the bathroom with a rag. Over all she said their could be seriously wrong with him, but I hope not. He's lived this long so hopefully he'll continue to, I'm gonna keep up the feeding every now and then though. Also, didn't mean to call him a she, just typed it in a rush. Here's a picture: Also, I haven't seen him nursing but he did once he was first born and a couple days afterwards.

If he's not nursing, he needs to be fed with a syringe or dropper. Try to notice if he nurses mom or not.

So you'll get him to the vet on Friday?

Keep a close eye on this kitten, and let us know how things go.

Yeah we just fed him, put him next to mom and still isn't showing any different signs besides sleeping next to her and the others. Yeah were taking him Friday, and il definitely keep you all updated. Thanks for helping out

Ashleykits said:

Yeah we just fed him, put him next to mom and still isn't showing any different signs besides sleeping next to her and the others. Yeah were taking him Friday, and il definitely keep you all updated. Thanks for helping out

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If he is alive till the 12´th, you must take charge of the feeding, unless you clearly and plainly SEE he is nursing nicely from momma.

The amount is 8ml kmr or goats milk  / oz a day.  For a normal week old kitten of say 150grammes, it gives 5oz, 40ml a day.  given every second hour a little more than 3ml at a time. 

You can smear a little thick honey water on his lips and gum, to give him extra energy.

If momma washes and warms him up, its good, if not, YOU must take charge of it too...

What I mean, sleeping peacefully after being feed is nice and what we want to see, BUT  "sleeping" much  may also be the beginning of dying, or at least, lethargy because becoming weak..

Which it is depends on the exact situation, and its only you being there whom can decide which it is.

This with strained breathing does concern me of course.  But if he doesnt die in several hours, he may perhaps even outlive this and get help from the vet on friday.

I worry about a pericardial diaphragmatic hernia with this kitten. I say this because we had a kitten born with this nearly exactly a year ago. This type of hernia can be diagnosed with single fully body x-ray and can be done on the kitten now.

A PPDH is caused by a hole in the diaghram that allows the intestines and other organs such as the liver to move into the chest cavity. With a PPDH, the pericardial sac is involved and the organs can move into the sac with the heart.

Our kitten would go into respiratory distress (abdominal, open mouth breathing) shortly after feeding or whenever she was stimulated (we could only handle her long enough to feed her.) Because of the type and severity of her hernia she was a high risk for aspirating, so had to tube feed her (insert tiny catheter down her throat and directly into her stomach).

The only other possibility that I can think of that can cause the respiratory issue you are seeing is a congenital heart defect.

Honestly, I would try and have this kitten see. Sooner than later if at all possible.

CatPack said:

I worry about a pericardial diaphragmatic hernia with this kitten. I say this because we had a kitten born with this nearly exactly a year ago. This type of hernia can be diagnosed with single fully body x-ray and can be done on the kitten now.

A PPDH is caused by a hole in the diaghram that allows the intestines and other organs such as the liver to move into the chest cavity. With a PPDH, the pericardial sac is involved and the organs can move into the sac with the heart.

Our kitten would go into respiratory distress (abdominal, open mouth breathing) shortly after feeding or whenever she was stimulated (we could only handle her long enough to feed her.) Because of the type and severity of her hernia she was a high risk for aspirating, so had to tube feed her (insert tiny catheter down her throat and directly into her stomach).

The only other possibility that I can think of that can cause the respiratory issue you are seeing is a congenital heart defect.

Honestly, I would try and have this kitten see. Sooner than later if at all possible.

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If the kittens has really one of these faults mentioned, what is the long term prognos?   I suspect in practice it will be pts??

So what we hope for is some sort of URI, upper respiratory infection, which hopefully may go over by itself and or with the help of vet administered medicines?

Prognosis depends on the severity of the condition.

For PPDH, our kitten had one of the worst cases in that her liver can through the hole and was causing more issues. Her prognosis was poor, but it was decided to attempt to get her big enough to survive surgery. Our goal was 16 weeks. She made it to 3.5 weeks and it was decided to attempt surgery in lieu of PTS. She made it through the actual surgery, but passed away very shortly afterwards.

Had her liver not been involved, the intestines could have been shifted back into place by gently shaking her in a downward motion and using gravity to pull everything down. The liver blocked the hole in her diagphram and prevented this.

As for heart...again it depends on the diagnosis. A hole in the heart CAN close on its own as the kitten grows. A shunt would possibly need surgery to repair.

Yes, of course it would be much preferred that this kitten would have a URI.

A ashleykits , do you notice any sneezing, coughing or crustiness around the eyes or nose? Any wheezing or clicking sounds when the baby breathes?

No I've not noticed anything like that, besides a little sound from him when he does the stomach thing. Kindve sounds like the hiccups or something, i haven't noticed him eating any of the time from his mom. So I've started feeding him and he doesn't act like he wants it at first but you can see him calm down while he swallows. The mom cares for him just as the others so I allow her to do that, when I feed him every two hours i don't know his weight yet so should I just originally do 2ml? I do use the rag and circulate his genitals like the vet said every now and then so he can use the bathroom just in case. Sometimes he also doesn't make that sound, I just heard him doing it after I fed him. Does my kitten have the same signs as yours so far?

Please weigh the kitten so we can tell you how much to feed.

How do I weigh it? Theirs nothing here to weigh it with

Can you buy a kitchen scale at Walmart?

Not at the moment, get payed the 12th

A ashleykits

Well, unless you can borrow one from a friend or relative, we'll go with giving 3mLs every 2 hours. Will the kitten take that much? If not, do not force it as we do not want aspiration.

If not, you may need to feed less but more frequently.

Let us know how this goes.

What if he still doesn't want it? I gave him 1/2ml and he's not interested so I guess il just do 1/2 but more frequently? Does that sound like it'd be alright to do that every 30mins to an hour?

Yes, especially if he is not nursing mom! The more often he gets the syringe, the more he will get used to it.

Try to notice if he suckles from mom at all.

Il give an update on Friday about him, but he's still acting the same and doesn't seem to be getting worse. He gets up and moves around and meows sometimes on his own so I hope that's just normal and not because he's uncomfortable or in pain or something

Hulk ended up dying thruout the night. I don't know if it was because the stomach thing like you said, but his body was cold because the heating pad quit off during the night. If it was because of that then he could have chance of making it. I didn't do my best at watching the heating pad, Sorry. R.I.P Hulk[emoji]127802[/emoji][emoji]10084[/emoji]️

So sorry to hear this.

How are the other kittens doing?