Neonatal November 2018

In 2017 we softly launched ‘Neonatal November’.  One of the key drivers for this was to have a wider period of time to raise awarness of neonatal journeys. 

In addition, we were conscious that there are many full-term neonatal journeys each year (ie the full-term babies with health issues and/or complications) and we wanted to widen beyond World Prematurity Day on November 17th.  As part of this, we purposely opened our Neonatal November social media activity with a shared personal story of a full-term baby with a tough start:  Our story – 12 months on

All babies needing an extra hand are cared for by the caring, patient and kind staff in the Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) and Special Care Baby Units (SCBUs). 

Here’s a taste of some of what will be happening throughout Neonatal November:

World Prematurity Day celebrations
As part of our World Prematurity Day celebrations we’re co-ordinating volunteers to help us provide morning or afternoon teas for all of the neonatal units throughout New Zealand. We’ll be providing purple (the colour of World Prematurity Day) balloons, streamers, tablecloths, etc. As context, here’s a gallery of images from World Prematurity Day 2017. 
* Seeking volunteer bakers *  To register interest in supporting your local neonatal unit, please head to: littlemiraclestrust.org.nz/calling-all-bakers
 

Baking for Babies
‘Baking for Babies’ provides the chance to help The Little Miracles Trust raise awareness and funds during Neonatal November.  In 2018 we’re launching a new initiative to generate more support for neonatal families. 

With NICUs and SCBUs such delicate and fragile environments it can be difficult to provide volunteering and support opportunities for those who wish to help The Little Miracles Trust.  Baking for Babies aims to provide a fun and simple way for people to support.  To register interest, please head to: littlemiraclestrust.org.nz/calling-all-bakers

Sharing personal stories – Giving hope & encouragement and raising awareness 
Neonatal journeys can be full of stress and anxiety. Due to this, providing hope and encouragement to parents on a neonatal journey is key. We receive a lot of positive feedback from families in a neonatal unit who read the stories we help to share.  They say that they feel strength, hope and positivity knowing that they are not alone going through these experiences and feeling certain emotions. 
Also, the stories help to raise awareness of neonatal journeys and the stress and anxiety involved – plus the wonderful people and organisations involved in the care of the families and their precious babies.

Raising Awareness – With Media
The Little Miracles Trust will be working hard to increase awareness of neonatal journeys in a range of different ways.

Media, if you’ve come across this page and want to learn more about story opportunities, please contact info@littlemiraclestrust.org.nz 
 

Raising Awareness – With our Incubator donation boxes
The Little Miracles Trust will have our unique incubator donation boxes out and about in public spaces.
Not only do they raise funds (to help us do more of this) but they are great for raising awareness – with a constant need to top-up the fliers that we make available.

 – are fully secure and able to be left in place (no hassle shifting)
 – we have Public liability insurance, so no risk to our hosts
 – No cost to the hosts, as the funds come from the generous public who donate

NZ Financial Markets Charity Golf Classic

#WELLYTECH
In 2018, we will again be supported by the wonderful #WellyTech event!
A great event that brings together 1,500 IT professionals to celebrate 2018, look forward to 2019, socialise, and more.  We have the privilege to be present and fundraise through auctions, which will enable more of our support.
Check out the details here:  https://wellytech.accessgranted.nz 

Support documents
In November, we are putting extra emphasis on spreading the word on our Support documents.
Neonatal journeys can be full of stress and anxiety. To help, working with parents who have been on a neonatal journey, we have developed a number of easy to read support resources. These cover a range of different topics, including:

Seeking your support
We don’t receive any Government funding and are entirely reliant on the generousity of individuals, companies and organisations in the form of donations, value-in-kind donations, grants, sponsorship and fundraising events to supplement operating costs and fund our services and initiatives. 

If you would like to support our work and help to make more of this happen, please consider making a donation here: littlemiraclestrust.org.nz/donation. 

Covering all neonatal journeys

At the top of this page we mentioned the drivers of creating ‘Neonatal November’.  A key one was to ensure that we were better positioned to cover, and represent, all neonatal journeys – widening beyond World Prematurity Day (November 17th) and giving a greater platform for those full-term babies who required specialist care in a neonatal unit.  On launching Neonatal November, it was so pleasing to receive feedback such as this:

“LOVE this initiative. We’re one of the families who had a full-term baby and a reasonably long (and sad) NICU journey. I want to support the Little Miracles Trust because of all the amazing work they did for us and like to keep up to date on fundraising and so on, but do sometimes feel left out (for lack of a better word and yes, I know it seems a bit precious!) because of all the prem baby posts. I’m looking forward to reading what you have in store for November  =)”

“I think this is a great initiative! Both World Prematurity Day and Neonatal November have their place  :)”

“Awesome to see you raising awareness that NICU doesn’t automatically mean prem. Born at 41+2, weighing in at 9lb2oz and receiving full body cooling, our son didn’t fit the typical image of a NICU baby.”

“I love this. We are a family who had a full term baby in nicu and the staff were very very amazing” 

Can you help?

We get a lot of positive feedback from families in a neonatal unit who read these stories and feel strength, hope and positivity knowing that they are not alone going through these experiences and feeling certain emotions. We’re always looking for personal stories to share.  If you would like to discuss sharing the story of your neonatal journey, we’d love to hear from you. Please email info@littlemiraclestrust.org.nz 
An example below of a full-term journey shared recently:

Levi’s story, full-term with a bumpy start

The story of Levi arriving, as told by mum Rebecca.  Levi’s story 
“My parents found it very hard being in NICU and seeing me like this. They had my big brother who was just 16 months old to look after as well. . . 
It was all very emotionally draining for them, especially my Mum. She just wanted to take me home and start our family life like we all expected was going to happen after having a baby. She missed our newborn days at home together”
You can read and download this story as a PDF