Question about possible aspiration pneumonia.

[mybabykittens]

Okay, so I have 2 3 week old kittens. One is quite a bit smaller. They have to be bottlefed, but for the first week and a half or so of their life they had Mom. Anyway, on Thursday one was drinking but I accidentally pushed on the bottle and some came out of it's nose. I cleaned it up and 'cleared' the lungs as much as possible. Now her breathing sounds fine, but I'm just wondering if it's possible she might have aspiration pneumonia? These are fosters, funded by the animal shelter, and I'm not sure they'd take it so kindly if I took them to another $100 vet visit.

[Aleda M Cheng, D.V.M., C.V.A]

I hope that she did not aspirate too much.  Aspiration pneumonia usually doesn't have a happy outcome.  

In a larger animal a veterinarian can use a suction device that can eliminate some of the aspirate in the major bronchi, but in a kitten when all bronchi are very tiny this would not be possible.  I assume that you used a bulb syringe to try to get out as much as possible?

The kitten's immune system, WBC's, Macrophages, etc.  will have to do the remainder of the clean up work now.  You can help aid this process by placing the kitten in a humidified room, and placing the kitten on amoxicillin antibiotics to help with a secondary upper respiratory bacterial infection.  At this young age, the kitten cannot even use an expectorant.

The good news is that she is breathing normally, so maybe the amount of aspirate was negligible, and she will not suffer any consequences.  Good Luck!

[mybabykittens]

Thank you! I will try the humid room. I just shook her sharply downward while supporting the head like a website suggested. She sneezed a little bit, but then seemed fine. It's now been 3 days without any concern so hopefully she just took in a little bit and will be OK. She's doing fine food and activity wise.