7 News Belize

Celebrating Preemies
posted (November 18, 2019)
Yesterday, November 17th was observed as World Prematurity Day. It is set aside to recognize that 15 million babies, or 1 in 10 neonates born every day, will fight for their lives against the many risks they face due to prematurity.

The medical professionals at the KHMH's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit chose to observe World Prematurity Day today. They invited the press to stop by and celebrate the many Belizeans who won that fight against prematurity and have gone on to live healthy lives.

We stopped by and here's what the manager of the NICU had to say:

Neroli Williams - Manager, NICU, KHMH
"World Prematurity Day is celebrated worldwide every year on November 17th. We chose to celebrate it today because the 17th was a Sunday, and most people are not at work, or on a day off, went traveling, or things like those."

"The day is usually to create awareness. The entire month of November is set aside as World Prematurity Month, and the 17th is World Prematurity Day. Today, we invited past graduates of the unit, so basically, premature babies that have survived and gone home. So, we invite them, their parents, their siblings, if they choose to. So, we basically had some food, drinks, videos of the past babies, of staff doing care for the babies, of parents interacting."

"It's very heart-warming for the staff and the parents. So of our staff consider the babies, as their baby, when they talk about the children. They would say our babies. When they leave here, it's a very satisfying feeling because you some, and honestly, some of us even think that the baby might not make it. But, yet we have to do everything that we can. We cannot just say well, leave the baby if we think that will not work, or he will not live. And sometimes, I guess the Good Lord surprises us because he knows what is the plan for the children. And they go home, even today, we have some that come that they are normal, so far."

"A premature baby is more at risk for infections, for brain damage, for a lot of complications in life that a full-term baby would not have."

"[Being] born prematurely is very hard for the baby, and even for us because depending on how far the gestational age is. In Belize, the viability is 28 weeks or more, and we have maybe like 40% of our pre-term babies being born less than that. And we do have survival from like 24, 25. It's not much but 25, 26, 28 weeks do survive."

"So far, for this year, until the end of October, we had 175 pre-term babies, out of 355, and it's about 49%. So, almost half of our admissions are pre-term babies."

Up until the end of October 2019, 175 out of the 355 babies born at the KHMH were premature.

Home | Archives | Downloads/Podcasts | Advertise | Contact Us

7 News Belize