Nearly $940,000 will help the Tiniest Texans program expand its impact.
When Katy Nevarez went into premature labor last year, she was worried about her young son like any mother would be—she had previously lost a baby at 23 weeks and four days gestation, the exact gestational age of her son—and she knew the difficult road they had ahead.
Full-term infants are born at 40 weeks gestation, and just 10 years ago, infants born earlier than 25 weeks would not typically survive. Now, babies born as early as 22 weeks can survive and thrive if they are born in hospitals that are equipped to care for them. Thankfully, Katy was in such a place this time.
On February 26, 2020, weighing 1 pound, 8 ounces, Gabriel Nevarez was born. However, as a micro-preemie and one of Baylor Scott & White Health’s Tiniest Texans, he had many obstacles to overcome during his next 186 days in the hospital before he could go home
with his parents and three older brothers.
To better serve and care for extremely premature babies like Gabriel, Baylor Dallas established the Tiniest Texans Program in 2019 within its Level IV neonatal intensive care unit. The Crystal Charity Ball’s generous gift will help children like Gabriel flourish
for years to come.
Micro-preemies, babies born at less than 28 weeks
or weighing less than 1,000 grams, are at higher risk for a multitude of complications such as brain bleeds, improper eye development, developmental delays and chronic lung disease.
“The care micro-preemies receive in their first hours, weeks and months can determine their quality of life for years to come,” said Kayla Carey, RN, clinical manager of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas.
“We’re talking about a child’s ability to see, whether they will be able to walk or whether they will be singing their ABCs at kindergarten.”
To better serve and care for these extremely premature babies, Baylor Dallas established a unique program within its Level IV neonatal intensive care unit in 2019 and commonly refers to these special patients as its “Tiniest Texans.”
With an intentionally designed and equipped 10-bed space and a highly trained care team, the program is designed not only to save lives, but also to decrease developmental and physical disabilities that could affect a child for a lifetime.
And, thanks to the Crystal Charity Ball, the Tiniest Texans program will be able to expand its impact and provide this highly advanced equipment and care to more micro-preemies in its Baylor Dallas NICU. In February, Crystal Charity Ball announced that the Tiniest Texans program had been selected as a 2021 beneficiary of nearly $940,000 in support, which will allow the program to invest in:
- Advanced equipment, including monitors and specialized ventilators to decrease painful procedures, that will protect the tiniest lungs; and as the number of patients increases, these advanced technologies will become more available for all micro-preemies at Baylor Dallas.
- Ongoing education for the care team to provide quality and specialty care for these tiniest of patients and their families.
- The addition of a nurse navigator to support and educate parents about the NICU (tests, procedures and diagnoses), provide families support for bonding throughout this isolating time and help them prepare to care for their baby’s unique needs once they are able to bring them home. “One of our Values at Baylor Scott & White is we never settle. We want to be known as the unit that changed the lives of thousands of babies in Texas. We want to be able to tell parents that they’re going to go home and they’re never going to have to come back…that they’re not going to have to carry oxygen on their shoulders for the rest of their lives or wonder if this is the day their child gets pneumonia and has to go back to the ICU,” said Kayla. “We want to be able to tell parents that this is the best place for their baby and that they’re going to have the best outcome and that we’re going to be able to achieve it together. Thanks to the support of Crystal Charity Ball, we are one step closer to making that promise a reality for even more families in North Texas.”
