There are 6 Newborn Intensive Care Units (NICUs) and 17 Special Care Baby Units (SCBUs) throughout NZ and The Neonatal Trust worked with Molly Woppy to get almost 400 care packages out to ensure that every Mum with a baby in a unit got a special gift on Mother’s Day.

The planning started off with the Trust’s ‘10 for 10’ fundraiser which encouraged followers of the Trust to set themselves a 10 day challenge, nominate 10 friends to join in, then donate $10 for the 10% of babies born too soon each year. Soon there were many families joining in with a 73 yr old being the oldest and the youngest was 10 year old Kade who also raised the most funds. Kade was born at 27 weeks gestation and keen to give back. Challenges chosen involved exercise, meditation, photography, reading and writing.

Thanks to the money raised The Neonatal Trust were able to gift parcels of delicious passionfruit shortbread and iced pink gingerbread hearts along with their own NICU-care guide to every single unit for them to gift to each Mum on Mother’s Day.

Rachel Friend, the Executive Director for The Neonatal Trust said that as soon as it was likely that Mother’s Day was going to be during lockdown, the team knew they needed to do act fast to ensure that the Mums weren’t left without. She continued by saying that having a baby in intensive care at any time is difficult let alone on Mother’s Day and during a national lockdown. We always send each NICU and SCBU Mum a gift on Mother’s Day but given the current COVID19 situation not only is funding tight but we had delivery logistics to overcome too. But we succeeded to make it happen.

The Trust hopes that all of these Mums get to have a special day filled with kangaroo cuddles with their little one and that their gift helped to brighten their day.

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