Thanks Koi Farms

Koi Farms Fundraiser

Our HUGE and sincere thanks go to Koi Farms and Koi Baling of Gore and all of their supporters.

With a personal connection to a neonatal journey, the team at Koi Farms and Koi Baling set about raising funds for The Little Miracles Trust. A paddock was specifically put aside for hay where Koi Farms and Koi Baling cut it, baled it, sold it and donated all the proceeds to The Little Miracles Trust.

Thanks go to all individuals and organisations who supported and purchased the hay. Costs were kept down through the kind donation of products from Farmlands and Livestock Supplies of Gore. Through the combined energy and effort of all involved, a fantastic $2,000 was raised to support neonatal families!

Thanks Farmlands Thanks Livestock Supplies Gore

Helping to support neonatal families

Fundraisers like this make a great difference helping us to provide our support. In 2018 we’ll be providing support through, and for, all Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) and Special Care Baby Units (SCBUs) in a range of different ways. This includes:

support and acknowledgment packs on special days like Mothers Day, Fathers Day and Christmas Day
providing welcome packs and resources for families on a neonatal journey
funding neonatal research that enhances the clinical care of all babies in New Zealand

In February we’ll be providing books and copies of our resource ‘Reading to your baby’ to all NICUs and SCBUs across New Zealand – from Whangarei to Invercargill. We’re sourcing a good number of new books and will be sending these to all neonatal units along with this resource.

Why Reading to your baby?

Our sickest babies, those who are born early or unwell, benefit from being read to. Reading to your baby:

Is a great bonding tool, your baby feels reassured and calm hearing your voice and allows you to be engaged in a positive way
Helps with early brain development. Early reading gives your baby’s brain a boost in terms of hearing and processing human sounds
Saturates your baby’s brain with language which is critical for human development
Allows parents, siblings, grandparents the chance to enjoy an activity with baby
Promotes future positive reading habits.

Neonatal support across New Zealand

Some context on neonatal care in New Zealand.

The closest neonatal unit to this fundraiser is the Invercargill Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU). Each year 250 babies are cared for in the SCBU – these born prematurely, or full term with health issues or complications. The SCBU provides the care and the extra medical support these babies need over and above general maternity wards.

The critical care and specialist equipment is centralised in the 5 main centres to make the most efficient use of resources and knowledge. So, if an Invercargill baby is born below 30 weeks gestation and/or has critical health issues they will be transferred to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). This will likely be the closest NICU in Dunedin, but could be Christchurch, Auckland, Hamilton or Wellington depending on the spaces available at a particular time.

The books and support resources add to other activity supporting neonatal families in the Invercargill SCBU. Examples of this include our nationwide acknowledgement of , and support for families in all neonatal units: Mothers Day packs, Fathers Day packs and Neonatal Secret Santa.

Support Us

If you want to help our support of families going through the stress and anxiety of a neonatal journey, you can donate via the link below.

The Little Miracles Trust provides support to families of premature or sick full-term babies as they make their journey through Neonatal Intensive Care, the transition home, and onwards. We do not receive any Government funding and are entirely reliant on the generosity 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.
As we are a registered charity (CC56619) with Charities Services New Zealand we will send you an IRD compliant tax receipt – this will happen automatically by return email.

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