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A little miracle, that’s how a Ballito mom, Elrize Kruger, describes her baby daughter, Tayla Grace Christie.
The baby was reunited with her parents, Elrize and Jason, after 75 days in Netcare Albertlito Hospital’s neonatal ICU courtesy breast milk which had been donated by mothers countrywide.
The baby was born with an emergency caesarean section at 31 weeks after a condition which restricted growth in the uterus, or stopped it altogether, was diagnosed.
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Elrize says it was a rough time. “It’s still very emotional, but we are so glad she’s home."
When she was 30 weeks pregnant she got the news from her gynaecologist: “There is a big problem. Your baby has stopped growing.”
The gynae immediately sent her to hospital and “pumped her full of steroids”. She thought she’d lost the baby.
“It was a normal Thursday morning. I thought I’d go back to work after the consultation.”
For a week long in hospital she felt the baby’s movements getting less and less.
“I will never forget it. The Saturday evening I had a bath, washed my hair and blow-dried it. My husband had just arrived home when I phoned to tell him to come back, because the baby was coming.”
She weighed just 995g at birth.
Because she had been born prematurely with the associated stress, her mom couldn’t produce any milk. In the next few days the baby lost even more weight, dropping down to just 805g.
The hospital gave her donated colostrum and breast milk.
Sister Eloise Strydom, manager of the hospital’s neonatal ICU, said it was normal for babies to lose weight after birth, but especially premature babies are at risk of infections and several other complications.
Babies who are extremely underweight struggle to regulate their body temperature.
Her mom was later discharged.
“The worst was to shower at home and see the scar, but where is my baby?”
After she was discharged, she expressed some of her breast milk every day, even if it was just a few millilitres, and drove with it in a syringe to give to her child.
The couple asked on Facebook for other moms to help them, because she had so little milk and it later dried up completely.
“I didn’t even know that there was something like donor milk. There was milk for her from as far afield as the Cape.’
The baby will be 3 months on September 10 and now weighs 2.4kg. “We live from day to day. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her brain, heart, eyes or ears. They are 100%.”
She says she will be eternally grateful to the hospital, the staff and the mothers who donated milk and still do.
This article was originally published on Netwerk24. Read the original article.
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