THE BABY
Baby Tyler was born at a hospital in Florida on February 4, 2007, when his mother was only 27 weeks along - 13 weeks early. When he was born, he weighed 950 grams (2 lbs, 1oz). Early into his three and a half month stay in the NICU, with his survival still in question, Baby Tyler’s parents were presented with an opportunity to join in a clinical opportunity by feeding him the first and only Human Milk Fortifier made from 100% human milk. If they passed on the opportunity, their baby would have been fed a cow-based fortifier, which up until now, has been the standard and only fortifier available for preemies in NICUs.
Baby Tyler’s parents weighed the options, and ultimately decided the best and only choice was 100% human milk for their baby. The result? Baby Tyler thrived and was released from the hospital May 22, 2007, weighing 8 ½ lbs.
IN THE WORDS OF HIS MOTHER
“I was surprised, and did not expect my baby to arrive so early. I have a teenager who was born four weeks premature, so I thought this baby might arrive early….but I never expected him three months before my due date! It was frightening to see my newborn so small, because I had never seen a baby so tiny before.
After about two weeks in the NICU, the caregivers approached us about a clinical trial using 100% Human Milk Fortifier made by Prolacta Bioscience. I was pumping because I wanted him to have breast milk, but he still required additional nutrition.
So, we had two choices:
Feed our baby the current standard of care for preemies, which is cow-based milk fortifier;
or
Feed our baby the only fortifier available made from made from 100% human milk;
The choice was initially difficult, because friends and relatives thought it would be bizarre to feed our own baby a fortifier made from someone else’s breast milk. However, we didn’t see the difference between breast milk from someone else and getting a blood transfusion, which is also from someone else.
We finally decided that there couldn’t be anything better for our baby than human milk, so we chose to use the Prolacta Human Milk Fortifier product, and we are so happy that we made that decision!
Our baby did tremendously well on Prolacta’s 100% Human Milk Fortifier. He started putting on weight once he was on this formulation, and the nurses kept commenting about how well he was doing. He did so well in fact, that I would share Tyler’s experience on the 100% Human Milk Fortifier with other parents in the waiting room - hoping they would make the same decision we made.
About two weeks before he was released, he was transitioned from the Prolacta fortifier, to the standard offering to get him ready to go home. The transition seemed to be somewhat challenging, as they had to try two different formulas before he finally came home with us on May 22, 2007 – weighing a healthy 8 ½ lbs. He was in the NICU for 107 days but thankfully never needed surgery!
Choosing Human Milk Fortifier made from 100% human milk is the best and only decision we could have made – we are thrilled that our baby is home with us and that he is doing so well. We have all the NICU caregivers and Prolacta to thank.”
****************************************************************************************************
On the date of the interview, September 7, 2007, Baby Tyler was still doing extremely well, and was weighing in at 14 lbs.
MF
