Each November, the University of Alabama at Birmingham is home to some of the cutest little turkeys around.
Most of the families in UAB Hospital’s Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (RNICU) will be spending the holidays away from home and other family members. But UAB’s tiniest patients will still be ready to celebrate Thanksgiving in handmade turkey costumes thanks to Loving the Preemies, a group that crochets holiday-themed outfits each year for babies in the RNICU.
Debbie Morrow, founder of Loving the Preemies, started crocheting the costumes for RNICU babies in 2016 after her nephew and his wife had premature quintuplets at UAB Hospital. Sadly, only two of the five babies survived. The family was at UAB Hospital for five months before they were able to go home. During that time, Morrow formed a bond with nurse Sandra Milstead. They began to discuss a need for clothing that is small enough to fit RNICU babies.
Preemie clothes are typically designed for babies who weigh 5 pounds or more, and many babies in UAB’s RNICU are smaller. Morrow saw this as an opportunity to use her skills to give back. Morrow worked closely with Milstead to meet this need. While Milstead measured babies to ensure the clothes would fit, Morrow created patterns to crochet the outfits.
“During the five months we were here, the RNICU nurses were just so good at taking care of the babies,” Morrow said. “Over the holidays, they would take pictures of the RNICU babies and give them to their parents to document their first holidays. One day, Sandra and I were talking about how difficult it was to find outfits that fit the tiny babies. I love to crochet, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to use this skill.”
Morrow started crocheting outfits for the babies; but as the need grew, she was unable to do it all by herself. In 2019, she decided to enlist the help of other crocheters in the area, and that is how Loving the Preemies began.
“My favorite part about this group is knowing that the families of these preemies will have an outfit to put their baby in, no matter how small they may be,” Morrow said. “I knew what our family and our babies went through when they were here, and I just hope these outfits are a blessing to each of these mothers, so they can be at peace knowing they have something that will fit their babies.”
The group creates 100-120 themed outfits for each of 10 major holidays, including Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving. Each outfit is for babies that are between 1 pound and 8 pounds. Each outfit is adjustable to ensure the best possible fit. Throughout the year, Morrow drives more than 100 miles to deliver the costumes. To date, Morrow has made and delivered approximately 5,000 outfits.
“One of the best things about the crocheted costumes is that they help make a baby’s first holiday a celebration,” Milstead said. “Even in the RNICU, these babies are experiencing their first Thanksgiving, and we want to help our families celebrate that.”
Milstead said each of the parents are thankful when presented an outfit, with some crying tears of joy.
“When parents get to see their baby dressed in a holiday outfit, this may be the first time they have seen their babies in anything that resembles clothing,” Milstead said. “These small hats and diaper covers bring such a sense of normalcy and happiness to parents, even if it is for just a few moments. It gives me great joy getting to see a parent’s face when they see their baby dressed up.”
Each outfit takes about an hour and a half to make, and all of the costs are covered by the group members and donations. To learn more about how to support or get involved with Loving the Preemies, join the group’s Facebook group.
(Courtesy of UAB News)
The UAB Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation has received a five-year, $2.2 million grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research to continue its traumatic brain injury (TBI) model system.
During the next five years, UAB hopes to accomplish two research priorities, said Dr. Robert Brunner, who was recently named vice chair of PM&R Development and the project director of the UAB TBI model system. First, it aims to validate methods to assess return-to-driving decisions after TBI and develop a driving intervention. UAB also looks to collaborate with other TBI model systems to examine the role geriatric syndromes play on rehabilitation outcomes.
“We have been fortunate to have a strong team of traumatic brain injury researchers over the years within the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation that has allowed us to maintain this grant over the last 25 years,” said Brunner. “Of all the centers that have been involved with the model system over the years, we have recruited and contributed the largest number of patients of any center. This is a testament to the department for their support and all the individuals who have been a part of this grant over the years.”
A TBI model system is awarded based on demonstrated excellence in research and knowledge translation that promotes health and quality of life for people with TBI, their families and professionals, Brunner said. UAB has been continually funded as a TBI model system since 1998 and is one of 17 model systems in the U.S.
“This grant award speaks volumes about the department’s outstanding TBI research and also exemplary system of care,” said Dr. Yuying Chen, research director in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in the UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine. “It truly attests to our commitment to the TBI community in the state of Alabama and beyond.”
UAB Medicine’s Spain Rehabilitation Center was named No. 20 in the U.S. News & World Report’s best hospitals for rehabilitation list. Researchers and health care providers at UAB work to enhance and restore functional ability and quality of life to people with physical impairments or disabilities through high-quality patient care, innovative basic science and clinical research, and comprehensive education.
(Courtesy of UAB News)
On the afternoon of April 25, 2018, Colin Tucker felt as though a railroad spike was being shoved through his chest.
Tucker was taken to his local hospital, where doctors found four blockages in his heart. He was having a heart attack, and 99% of the main artery that supplies blood to the largest portion of his heart was blocked. After months of unsuccessful treatments, procedures and medications, Tucker was sent to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he was placed on the transplant list and received a ventricular assist device (VAD) to pump blood from the chambers of his heart to the rest of his body.
Just over two years later, Tucker became the UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute’s first heart-transplant recipient from a hepatitis C-positive donor. It is part of a new organ transplant program available at UAB where doctors safely transplant organs from hepatitis C-positive donors into uninfected recipients and cure the hepatitis C with antiviral therapy. The program originally began with liver and kidney transplants but has now expanded to include heart and lung transplants.
“With so many people in need of an organ transplant, this program allows us to use perfectly functioning organs to offer our patients improved quality of life,” said Dr. José Tallaj, medical director of UAB’s Heart Transplant Program. “Now that the treatment for hepatitis C is simple, extremely effective and needed for only a short period of time, organs from donors with hepatitis C are a great option for patients like Mr. Tucker, who had been waiting for a long time to get an organ.”
Organ size, donor location and medical urgency are a few of the factors that the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) considers to determine heart allocation. Tucker, who is 6 feet, 6 inches tall, performed well with the VAD and was able to participate in a 10K and 12K while on the device. Tucker’s height and great performance on the device led to a 28-month waiting period for a heart.
“When I got the VAD, I had to make a personal choice to not let it keep me from living my life,” Tucker said. “I live in a coastal town and had to give up some of the hobbies I loved, like fishing, swimming, boating and even some traveling, because of the VAD. This was difficult; but I was not sure when a heart would become available, so I adjusted to this new way of life the best I could.”
Tucker’s wait finally came to an end when he received a call from UAB on Oct. 28, 2020, and was asked whether he would be willing to receive an organ from a hepatitis C-positive donor. He agreed and received his new heart the next day.
“When I received the call about the heart, they told me it came from a hepatitis C donor and explained to me how my risk of getting hepatitis C was extremely low,” Tucker said. “It was no longer a question of whether or not it was safe; it was a question of how soon I could get it. This was the only call I had received about a donor heart in two years, and here I am now, almost a year later, and doing fantastic.”
Patients who agree to receive a hepatitis C-positive organ begin their antiviral medications the day of their transplant surgery and remain on this medication for eight to 12 weeks. After the medication is complete, they will attend routine checkups.
Each UAB transplant patient has responded to the therapy since the program began in 2019.
“Hepatitis C is a curable disease, and the antiviral therapy has proved to be more than 95 percent effective in preventing potential infection,” Tallaj said. “This program is safe, it is effective and it might decrease someone’s waiting time because it opens the donor pool to a greater number of people. We want to ensure that all of our patients experience a good quality of life, and this program is a way to do that.”
From treating high blood pressure to heart transplants, UAB’s Cardiovascular Institute provides a full range of services for patients. Learn more by visiting uabmedicine.org/heart.
This story originally appeared on the UAB News website.
(Courtesy of Alabama NewsCenter)