May 30, 2008
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 UAB's Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (RNICU)/Critical Care Nursery (CCN). More than 1,500 are expected to attend. Neonatologists, nurses, respiratory therapists, social workers, chaplains and other staff will witness the fruits of their labor and renew acquaintances with former preemies, some of whom are now adults.
The reunion will take place Saturday, May 31 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at UAB Bartow Area, 617 13th Street South.
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" staff member Vicki McCain has written to the tune of "Hello Mother, Hello Father."
Kids will enjoy refreshments, a huge moonwalk, carnival games, Ronald McDonald, Smokey the Bear, the Barber's Dairy Cow and puppet shows.
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 that will be used as a wall decoration in the new UAB Women and Infants Center.
Premature births are difficult to prevent, but for babies who are 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 two pounds. Many of these advances have been, and continue to be, pioneered at UAB, where the RNICU/CCN is part of a national network funded by the National Institutes of Health. 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.