May 21, 2008

• More than 1,500 former patients and families expected

• Chance to reunite with physicians, nurses and other staff

• Reunion happening more than 25 years

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- More than 6,000 former patients and family members from around the state and Southeast have been invited to the annual reunion of "graduates" of the University of Alabama at Birmingham's (UAB) Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (RNICU)/Critical Care Nursery (CCN), Saturday, May 31, from 1 to 3 p.m., at UAB's Bartow Arena.

More than 1,500 people expected to attend. At 1 p.m. there will be a welcome message by Kerry Aleccia, R.N., team leader and nurse in the RNICU, followed by the RNICU/CCN staff singing a "camp song" written by staff member Vicki McCain to the tune of "Hello Mother, Hello Father."

Kid will enjoy refreshments, huge moonwalk, carnival games, Ronald McDonald, Smokey the Bear, Barber's Dairy Cow and Chug Truck, and puppet shows by Birmingham Library. Sponsors include MedImmune Inc., Children's Medical Ventures Inc., Mead Johnson Nutritionals, Bud's Best Cookies, and the Alabama Eye Bank.

Door prizes provided by Bass Pro Shops, including a kayak and camping equipment, will be given away. Kids will receive goodie bags and other items from sponsors, including Bass Pro Shops, the Alabama Forestry Commission and local McDonalds's franchisee CLC Inc. Bass Pro Shops also provided all of the decorations and a crew to set up the reunion.

There also will be a remembrance table on the Bartow Arena concourse where parents can write whatever they want on a red glass heart to remember babies that passed away. Parents will get to take the remembrance hearts home.

 In addition, the first 100 "graduates" who go to a specially designated tile table will be able to put their handprint, footprint, birth date, etc., on a tile which will be fired by a local tile company and used as a wall decoration in the new UAB Women and Infants Center.

The UAB Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (RNICU) and Critical Care Nursery (CCN) reunion is a time for neonatologists, nurses, respiratory therapists, social workers, chaplains and other staff to see the babies they worked so hard to save, some of whom are now adults; and a time for parents to reunite with staff they bonded with during their child's stay. UAB staff has been reuniting with former RNICU/CCN patients for more than 25 years.

Premature births are difficult to prevent, but for babies born early, medical advances in recent years have led to improved survival rates and better quality of life - even for those who initially weigh less than 2 pounds. Many of these advances have been, and continue to be, pioneered at UAB, where the RNICU/CCN is part of a national research network funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The NICHD sponsors research on development, before and after birth; maternal, child, and family health; reproductive biology and population issues; and medical rehabilitation. UAB is one of the original eight National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) research sites commissioned in 1986 and is the only facility in the country that is involved in all three of the NIH research initiatives for maternal, child and family health, the Neonatal Research Network, Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units Network and the Global Network for Women and Children Research.

The under-construction UAB Women and Infants Center, scheduled to open in 2010, will house a new Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit/Continuing Care Nursery (RNICU/CCN). With this facility, UAB will be one of the largest RNICU/CCN units in the country and one of the first hospitals in the Southeast to offer single room neonatal intensive care.