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Greetings!
 We hope you and your family enjoyed the Thanksgiving Holiday. This month, we give thanks to all the donor moms who donate their milk to the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas. Without you, we wouldn't be here! In this issue, we are celebrating our recent appearance on The Doctors with Alicia Richman. Alicia donated milk to us for 11 months and achieved her personal goal of donating over 11,000 ounces. She researched and contacted Guinness World Records ™ to find out if there was a current record for donor human milk donation to a nonprofit milk bank. She completed all of the lengthy steps set forth by Guinness World Records ™ and was awarded the title! Alicia decided to pursue this award simply to help raise awareness of nonprofit milk banking and spread the word that there is a national shortage of donor milk. We are grateful to each and every donor who donates any amount of milk. It takes an army of moms donating all different amounts of donor milk to feed preemies in the 60 plus hospitals we serve. In the COMMUNITY PARTNERS Section, we would like to introduce you to an incredible nonprofit we admire - NICU Helping Hands Foundation. Also, Megan Richardson shares how she coped while her son Camden waited in the NICU for a life-saving surgery. Enjoy reading! Thanks for all that you do, Amy |
The Doctors TV Show
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This month, The Doctors TV Show invited us to Los Angeles to discuss donor human milk and honor Alicia Richman, the new Guinness World Records ™ holder for the most donor human milk donated to a nonprofit milk bank.
Everyone took notice! We read articles in English, French, German, Chinese and Arabic, and news media including The Huffington Post, New York Daily News, Houston Chronicle, French Tribune, Jezabel, Baby Center, The Stir and even Perez Hilton wrote about her amazing, life-saving gift of 86 gallons of donor human milk.
Click Here to watch the first national TV segment featuring donor human milk and nonprofit milk banking!
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 Facebook Friends Share Photos
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Each month we'll ask our Facebook Friends to share a few photos with us. This month we're recognizing and THANKING your breastfeeding support partner!
 | | Lucy Eades' husband has packed up her breastmilk for drop off to the milk bank. |
 | | And Kelly David's husband is on his way to the milk bank too. |
Thank you to all the husbands, sisters, friends and partners that support you all and help you deliver your milk to the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas! |
Community Partners
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Q&A with Lisa Grubbs, Founder of NICU Helping Hands Foundation
Why did you found the NICU Helping Hands Foundation?
My husband is a neonatologist and we saw the stress families endure while their baby was in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
Babies in a NICU receive great medical care, but we consistently heard parents say, "I wish there was someone I could talk to who has gone through this.... I need to find someone who can help me deal with this hopeless feeling that is in my heart..... I just don't have anyone to talk to.... I still can't even hold my baby." We could see a clear gap in services offered to these special families.
Founded in July 2010, NICU Helping Hands Foundation supports families with a premature infant in a hospital NICU both while they are in the hospital, and when they return home. After nearly a year of program research and fundraising, our flagship program, Project NICU, was launched in Ft. Worth's Baylor All Saints Medical Center.
How does NICU Helping Hands Foundation help families?
We decided early on that NICU Helping Hands would offer an in-hospital program as well as community programs to all families - parents, siblings and, if needed, extended family - to ensure they are all coping well and receiving constant, judgment-free support and information while their baby is in the NICU and after they are discharged home.
Brent Dore, our Project NICU Program Facilitator, is a full-time, trained employee who works in the hospital directly with mothers who are on bed rest as well as with parents and siblings who have a baby in the NICU. We focus exclusively on the emotional and educational needs of the entire family, while the hospital staff focuses on the medical needs of mothers and babies. It is a best-case scenario during a very difficult time in the life of a family.
Project NICU includes:
- Printed materials to support parents as they manage the day-to-day realities of the NICU;
- Weekly support groups for parents of NICU babies;
- Monthly education sessions for parents and siblings;
- On-on-one support through our graduate parent mentoring program;
- Daily visits and special monthly programs for mothers on hospital bed rest;
- Services for families of premature infants transported from a birth hospital to a program hospital's NICU;
- Bereavement services for families experiencing the loss of a child;
- Memory archiving classes for families; and
- NICU staff development opportunities.
What new programs do you have planned for 2013?
We plan to launch our new One-on-One Mentoring Program that matches graduate NICU parents with new NICU parents. A mentoring family who has emerged from their NICU experience with much-needed information and a helpful, supportive perspective will be matched with a family currently in crisis, whose baby is undergoing similar struggles or has a similar medical background.
We believe that families in our mentoring program can help each other in ways that no one else could at this specific point in their lives. Visit the NICU Helping Hands Foundation on Facebook.
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Moms Connect
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Megan Richardson
Bossier City, LA
Shortly after midnight on November 15, 2011, I realized that I'd fallen asleep without feeling my baby move. After poking on my belly, eating a banana, and rolling side-to-side, I knew something was terribly wrong when I still could not feel any movement.
 I immediately went to the hospital and prayed that I would have the strength to deal with what was to come. The doctors said our baby's heart was still beating with occasional drops in rate. We were transported to Willis-Knighton South Hospital in Shreveport, LA where I had an emergency C-section and the doctors discovered that our baby's umbilical cord was a true knot, wrapped around his neck twice. Camden Micheal weighed 3 lbs. 2 oz. and was 15 inches long. I remember hearing a tiny cry as his premature lungs struggled to function before he was put on a mechanical ventilator.
 As a former NICU nurse, I knew about the benefits breastmilk gives premature babies. I breastfed my other two sons and wanted to provide our new little miracle with the same start, so I began pumping every 3-4 hours. At first Camden was on IV nourishment, but soon received less than a teaspoon of my milk through an oral-gastric tube. I was concerned that I would not produce enough milk, but I was able to fill up our home freezer as well as the one in the NICU!
 During his third week of life, Camden developed hydrocephalus from a small brain hemorrhage, requiring a few surgeries. This rare and unanticipated development lengthened his stay in the NICU. It was during this time that I realized we needed to do something with all of my stored milk.
My mom suggested that I should look into donating my breastmilk. I completed the donor application process for the Mothers' Milk Bank at North Texas and donated 769 ounces. I donated my breastmilk to another milk bank as well, making my total donation 1,621 ounces.
 Donating my milk helped me look outside of my own crisis, and made me feel better about leaving the hospital day after day without our baby for nearly three months. I was happy to know that I could help other mothers provide their babies with the benefits of breast milk. On January 24, 2012, Camden had surgery to implant a shunt to drain the fluid from his brain. We were finally able to take our baby boy home from the hospital on February 2, 2012 and it did not take him long to grow into my milk supply.
 Today, Camden is growing and developing as expected for a baby with his medical history. He is truly our family superstar and we are so grateful to God for the blessing of modern medicine and the benefits of breastmilk.
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