James Lester
Kaitlynn and Grace's Mini Mile Run for The EBA
Fundraising for The Early Birth Association
Story
Kaitlynn and her lovely friend Grace want to run the Brighton Marathon Mini Mile for The Early Birth Association again this year! This is amazing especially as Kaitlynn sustained quite a badly cut knee at the very start of the race last year, but bravely carried on to complete the race despite it hurting and bleeding all the way round. She was helped all the way round by her lovely friends who were running with her, and we were so proud of the girls! Since last year I (Kaitlynn's Mum Julie) have been even more involved in my position as Committee Member
of The EBA, and I'm now a Trustee as well, and we really want to continue to help this amazing charity to do the work we do which directly helps babies, families and staff in our local neonatal units. Having a premature or unwell baby is often such an unexpected, shocking and distressing experience, and the work The EBA does to support babies and parents through this really difficult time is just amazing! On top of that the EBA also literally saves lives by funding vital life saving equipment that is used for babies on the units. Please support us and give Kaitlynn and Grace some extra encouragement to do the Mini Mile again! Thank you.
of The EBA, and I'm now a Trustee as well, and we really want to continue to help this amazing charity to do the work we do which directly helps babies, families and staff in our local neonatal units. Having a premature or unwell baby is often such an unexpected, shocking and distressing experience, and the work The EBA does to support babies and parents through this really difficult time is just amazing! On top of that the EBA also literally saves lives by funding vital life saving equipment that is used for babies on the units. Please support us and give Kaitlynn and Grace some extra encouragement to do the Mini Mile again! Thank you.
More details about Kaitlynn's story and The EBA are below:
Kaitlynn took us all by surprise by arriving rapidly and early in November 2010 when she was due in January 2011! She spent a total of four weeks in Worthing Hospital Special Care Baby Unit receiving treatment for her breathing (she had Neonatal Respiratory Distress Syndrome), phototherapy treatment for Jaundice & feeding & growing. She finally came home on Christmas Day, still over three weeks before her due date! Worthing Hospital SCBU took great care of Kaitlynn and we are forever grateful to them for the strong, healthy and amazing girl we have today.
It was when Kaitlynn was most unwell and struggling with her breathing in SCBU that the Trevor Mann Baby Unit in Brighton was mentioned to me, as somewhere she could be transferred to for intensive care if she didn’t improve with the high dependency care they could offer at Worthing. Thankfully Kaitlynn responded well to the treatments at Worthing and we stayed there. I then met other families who had been at Trevor Mann with their babies & was told how amazing it was there too.
Little did I know that two more babies in our immediate family would require their services in the next few years. In 2012 our incredible nephew Alexander was born and needed a stay in the Intensive Care Unit there where we got to see first hand the amazing work they do to support babies, parents and their wider families.
Then in 2014 we found ourselves back there when Kaitlynn’s newborn younger brother Samuel was taken critically ill with Meningitis and Encephalitis at 6 days old. His life was saved in Worthing Hospital SCBU and he was then transferred to Trevor Mann Baby Unit by the Neonatal Ambulance Retrieval Team for a week long stay in Intensive Care before transfer to The Royal Alex. Again, TMBU were phenomenal in the care provided to Samuel & in helping to solve the initial mystery of why he had become so unwell.
Since these experiences I have been passionate in trying to support our local Neonatal Units and one of the ways I can do this is to volunteer for The Early Birth Association. The EBA raise funds to support the work of the Trevor Mann Baby Unit and the SCBU at the Princess Royal in Hayward’s Heath. They do so many great things, including providing toiletries packs to parents who suddenly find themselves in a neonatal unit far from home and with nothing with them, tea, coffee & snacks for the parents kitchens, & coffee mornings with EBA volunteers who can provide emotional support and time to listen as they are parents themselves of babies who were born premature &/or unwell. I especially benefited from these things when Samuel was in TMBU. The EBA also help to fund vital equipment for the Units, including a transport incubator, & a cerebral functioning monitor (both of which Samuel needed when he was on the unit) & helping towards the cost of staff courses and development.
Please donate to support us to continue to do this vital work for the babies and parents who find themselves in such an unexpected and traumatic position, it really does make such a big difference.
We are so proud of Kaitlynn and her fab best friend Grace for saying they would run the mini mile to help celebrate how far Kaitlynn has come since her beginning as a preemie baby & to raise vital funds for the EBA.
Thank you for reading!
www.earlybirth.co.uk
Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.