Parent Stories
In January of 2009, at a little over 27 weeks of gestation, Chance and Sienna had surprising New Year’s plans. With three months left before their due date, they decided to make their grand entrance into the world while mom and dad were vacationing just outside of Sarasota, FL. Chance made his entry weighing two pounds, three ounces, and Sienna arrived weighing one pound, 15 ounces.
Although they arrived so early, the twins still had a good first week in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Sienna was weaned from a ventilator a few hours after birth, and Chance was extubated on day five. Approximately seven days after their birth, however, Chance began having gastrointestinal problems that required surgical intervention and had to be moved to a NICU in St. Petersburg, FL. Almost two weeks later, Sienna also began exhibiting similar issues and joined her brother in the NICU in St. Petersburg for further evaluation but thankfully didn’t require surgery.
While Chance and Sienna experienced excellent care by all the NICU caregivers who helped them, they also had someone very special in their life who was their most fierce advocate – their mother. Mom was a pediatric occupational therapist, and a certified lactation counselor who worked in a Level III NICU at another hospital. She had no doubt as to what was best for her twins, especially when it came to their diet.
“I knew how important it was to keep my babies on an exclusive human milk diet. When it was recommended that a human milk fortifier be added to my breast milk because of their nutritional needs, I was well aware that the standard of care in most NICUs was a powdered cow milk-based fortifier. The twins were already experiencing feeding intolerance and I was not willing to take the risk of adding a non-human product to their diet. Fortunately I was aware of Prolacta Bioscience and the fact that they were the only company that provided a fortifier made exclusively from human milk.”
The NICU in which the twins were staying had not used Prolacta’s human milk-based human milk fortifier, H2MF™ in the past, yet they agreed to use it for the first time with Chance and Sienna. The twins thrived. Over the next few months, the twin’s condition improved, and they continued to grow and gain weight.
Nearly four months after making their early New Year’s entrance, Chance and Sienna had grown healthy and strong enough to ride home in their new minivan across the state to Hollywood, FL with mom and dad. Chance weighed seven pounds, nine and a half ounces, and Sienna weighed six pounds, ten and a half ounces.
“We will forever be grateful to the NICUs, doctors, nurses, and staff who fought along with us to save our babies. We will also always be grateful to the breast milk donors who made it possible for a human milk fortifier to be made using exclusively human breast milk.”
