Posted by christina
Tue, 30 Nov 2010 06:28:00 GMT
To finish up Premature Infant Awareness Month, we have a special guest blog post by Dr. Saudamini Nesargi who is helping us with our clinical trials at St. John’s Hospital in Bangalore, India.
Temperatures in Bangalore have dropped in the last few days and most of us enjoy it. We drink something warm, wear woolen clothes and keep the doors and windows closed. If not, we shiver hope the sun starts shining again soon. But what if you a were little premature baby who could do none of these things…not even shiver to keep yourself warm?What if you had to rely completely on others and often inadequate resources just to keep warm?
This unfortunately is the situation for one third of all babies born in India. We have an additional problem, not only of preterm babies, but also of babies born at term whose weight is so low, they simply do not have the required amount of fat to insulate them to keep them warm.
I work in the neonatal intensive care unit of a tertiary hospital in Bangalore and a few days ago a baby arrived in the emergency room with a temperature of 33 degrees centigrade. (Almost 4 degrees below normal). He was 1200g, born 12 weeks preterm and had treatable congenital anomalies requiring immediate surgery. He was just hours old and had traveled across two states in a bus just to reach us.
He picked up an infection on the way, was bleeding due to liver damage, and was barely breathing- all because of hypothermia. All this meant a delay in surgery, increased cost because of longer hospital stay and sadly for the little boy-his parents did not have the means to continue treatment and he was taken back home- untreated.
This is about just one baby and I wish he were the exception rather than the rule. Most babies coming to us from other hospitals come from significant distances and come hypothermic. This instantly puts them at a higher risk of mortality even with the best of treatment that we have to offer. What they need is something to keep them warm. Something simple, which works well, without electricity, is affordable and easy to use.
What they need is an EMBRACE……
–Dr. Saudamini Nesargi
Tags baby, doctor, pregnancy, premature, surgery, thankful
Posted by christina
Wed, 24 Nov 2010 09:36:00 GMT
The first five months of my pregnancy were smooth and without incident. At a routine check up at 22 weeks, my physicians and the ambulatory technicians conducting my exam discovered that I was a few hours away from being dilated and going into pre-term labor. If delivered, it would have been extremely unlikely that our daughter would have survived. I was immediately admitted into the hospital. The next morning, I had surgery conducted by one of New York City’s leading maternal-fetal medicine specialists to promote the duration of my pregnancy.
Afterward, the obstetricians guiding my care advised me to take it easy to ensure my pregnancy would last as long as possible. With optimism, positive energy, and a team of clinicians monitoring my pregnancy, we made it to nearly 36 weeks. My daughter was born exactly one month before her due date, weighing 6 pounds and measuring nearly 20 inches. My husband and I were thrilled and relieved that she was in good enough health and weight to avoid admission to the neonatal intensive care unit. We all went home together two days after she was born.
Without dedicated obstetricians, maternal-fetal medicine specialists, ambulatory technicians, and nurses skilled in high-risk pregnancies and deliveries, my daughter probably would not have had the smooth entry into the world that she did. My husband and I are immensely grateful for the high quality care, attention and nurture she received from a team of people trained to promote the survival of newborns. Now 20 months old, our daughter is a reminder of the incredible medical care we were lucky enough to be afforded and drives our commitment to ensure all mothers, fathers and newborns around the world have the same access.
–Kalpana, Embrace volunteer
Tags baby, daughter, doctor, pregnancy, premature, surgery, thankful
Posted by christina
Tue, 23 Nov 2010 08:26:00 GMT
We’ve asked a few Embrace supporters to share stories of their child’s birth to help highlight the fact that prematurity is still a major issue in America, and around the world. Most of us in America are lucky enough to have world-class neonatal care, but as March of Dimes notes, more newborns die from premature birth than from any other cause. Embrace hopes to reduce neonatal mortality and morbidity, please help is spread the word!
Toby’s Story
On November 01, 2008, for no apparent reason and with no time to prepare our son was born three and half months early, Toby, was born at 25 weeks at a U.K. hospital. He weighed 1 pound and 14 oz or 860g. He was transferred to a specialist hospital where he was cared for in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for the first three months of his life. When we arrived at the ICU unit, it was very daunting, but the presence of medical specialists and modern medical equipment was very reassuring for us.
The hours passed and we started to comprehend the implications of his early arrival. As he lay in his incubator for treatment and warmth, there was a constant stream of various doctors and nurses tending to his needs. Toby was tiny, but he often had something attached to every limb for all the different drugs. He needed to receive multiple medical interventions, including, bagging for when his oxygen saturation became too low, they also used medication to close an open duct in his heart, medication for several infections and he needed photo therapy and eight blood transfusions
Our little baby boy was on a ventilator for 6 weeks. The treatment used to get him off the ventilator was complicated, but he gradually progressed to only needing nasal prongs. When Toby moved to the high dependency unit, he no longer needed an incubator, but still needed to be kept warm; he slept on a heated mattress.
As he got stronger, he was transferred back to the special care unit at the hospital where he was born, during his time there he was transferred back and forth to specialist hospitals for laser treatment in both eyes and a hernia operation, Eventually he was able to do normal things, like have a bath, wear clothes, feed with out a tube and have lots of cuddles. With support from specialists, it took Toby another three months of slow weaning off the oxygen, Toby Finally came home on March 24, 2009!
Toby is now 2 years old. He is a very happy, healthy, beautiful bouncy boy with a good appetite for food and cuddles. We are very proud of him and immensely grateful for the many medical staff that looked after him.
–Proud mother and Embrace supporter, Hannah
Tags baby, life, premature, thankful
Posted by Jane Chen
Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:57:00 GMT
Tonight, the Empire State Building will light purple, in recognition of the March of Dimes 8th Annual Prematurity Awareness Day. This acknowledges the half a million premature births that take place in the US every year.
Take this number and multiply it by 40.
This is the number of premature and low birth weight babies born around the world, primarily in developing countries: 20,000,000.
While in the US, most premature babies have access to hospital care and traditional incubators, poor parents in developing countries have no means to keep their sick infants warm. As a result, they resort to desperate measures, like placing their babies under light bulbs, or tying hot water bottles around their bodies.
Sujatha is a young mother I recently met in Krishnamylur Village, in India. She gave birth to a baby two months prematurely, and had no money to go to a hospital. So her husband built a glass box for the baby, over which they hung a 100 watt light bulb. She described watching her baby turn blue, because he was so cold. Room temperature feels like freezing cold water to these fragile babies.
Her baby died a day later.
The death of a child is a tragedy in countries like the US. In countries like India, this tragedy is an everyday reality. In honor of Prematurity Awareness Day, it’s important to not only acknowledge the premature babies born in the US, but those born all around the world.
So for those in New York, as you bundle up and gaze at the purple lights on the Empire State Building, take a moment and think of the 20 million babies around the world, many of whom die or become severely ill because they can’t stay warm.
Our hope is that all of these babies will soon be cared for – through the simple warmth of an Embrace.
Posted by christina
Tue, 02 Nov 2010 21:54:00 GMT
As an advertising creative director, I spend lots of time listening to clients drone on and on about things people don’t care about. In fact, 90% of my work is in helping them whittle down pages of marketing-ese into one thing that might actually benefit someone, somewhere.
Imagine my surprise the first time I learned about Embrace. A company answering a need that causes 450 babies to die every hour? A group of founders so impassioned they are leaving their families – and potential six-figure jobs – to live in India? A solution that took brilliant high-tech minds to make it low-tech enough to succeed in the developing world? An advancement that – while reducing infant mortality – actually is expected to help the world’s population problem?
Well, how could I ever turn my back on an opportunity to be part of something like this? I couldn’t. The week after I first met Jane Chen, I found myself mentally calculating the cost of a world without low-cost incubators. Leaving my exercise class: 450 babies dead. After a movie: 1000 babies dead. Up from a night of sleep: 4,320 babies dead.
As a mother, this was devastating to ponder. And it lit a fire under me to help Embrace however I could.
I recently served as a guest speaker at an 8th grade creative writing class studying advertising copywriting. At the end of our time together, I told the students this:
"Sometimes I envy my brother and his wife who are scientists, looking for cures for things like Alzheimer’s Disease. But if you are persuasive with words, you can have just as big an impact on the betterment of the world as anyone. You can inspire others to get involved, to give money or to volunteer."
I believe this. In fact, I believe we all have unique gifts that can change that world. What is yours? Whatever it is, I can think of no better place to give it right now, in this world, than to Embrace.
-Kat Gordon, Creative Director & Founder, Maternal Instinct
Tags creative, help, instinct, maternal, volunteer