Open Mic

By Jane McCasland

I won’t lie, I love getting homemade cards from my kids, and flowers from my husband.  But every mom knows, the best Mother’s Day gift is healthy and happy children.  More of us than you might expect have come close to losing that chance.

I was not your typical mother of a micro-preemie baby.  I was 32, well-educated, and had top-flight prenatal care at Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth.  But in a matter of 24 hours they almost lost me and my firstborn. 

Kate was born 15 weeks early and she weighed less than 1 pound 7 ounces.  She was 12 inches long, about the size of a Barbie doll. She spent 112 days in the neonatal intensive care unit, and most of that was on the critical list. 

 It was a terrifying and very dark time.  The child you’ve always wanted is suddenly here, and then she’s struggling for life.  You beat yourself up.  What could I do differently? What did I do wrong?  But real quickly you come to realize that doesn’t matter, what matters is keeping your kid here.

More than 3 million moms lose that battle every year and watch their newborn baby die.  What could be worse than that?  I’ll tell you what: most of these deaths are totally preventable.  Too many mothers don’t have access to the very basic health care and skilled attendance at birth that can make all the difference. 

So, 16 years after our ordeal, my daughter and I have joined the movement to preserve U.S. funding for maternal and child health programs in developing countries, where the vast majority of these deaths occur.  Our country’s leadership has helped slash child mortality rates in some of the poorest places on earth.  We shouldn’t cut that progress short now.

We recently took that message to Washington, DC, as part of an advocacy day organized by Save the Children.  Kate got to share her personal story with lawmakers, and we both got a kick out of the shocked and amazed looks on their faces that she survived all she did.

The irony is that what saved Kate is a simple technique that works well in poor countries where access to technology – like reliable incubators – is difficult to maintain.  I found about kangaroo mother care during the early weeks of Kate’s hospital stay, after coming home to another sleepless night.

Channel surfing the TV, I came across a mom in Africa wrapping her itty bitty baby to her chest.  It turns out this simple act can save lives because skin-to-skin contact and easy access to breastfeeding give premature babies the warmth and nutrition they need to grow bigger and stronger. 

My husband and I had to argue with the doctors to give it a try, but one night a nurse trained in kangaroo care told me that Kate was having a bad night and now was the time.  When the doctors saw her weight gain the next day, they gave in, and I started kangarooing Kate regularly.  I’m sure it made the difference between Kate making it or not.

We got lucky.  I’ve had a ringside seat to watch my daughter develop into one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known.  She’s smart, goofy, fun, resilient and has a really cool attitude about life.  A big part of that is about giving back.

At age 11, Kate knitted 112 caps like the ones that helped keep her warm in those early days—one for each day she was in intensive care.  She went on to organize senior citizens to help the cause, and together they now supply nine Texas hospitals with caps for preemies.

This year Kate also gave 1,600 baby caps to Save the Children to help moms learning kangaroo care in Guatemala, Vietnam and Ethiopia.  Then she asked lawmakers to do what they can, too.  I was so proud.  Kate is living proof that saving one life can help many more.

We made the trip to D.C. for kids like Kate and moms like me.  It doesn’t matter if you’re here or in an African country, if you have every privilege or have nothing.  You’re a mom and you want the best for your children.  You want happiness and you want survival.  By speaking up for moms everywhere, we can all help deliver those gifts.

For the latest  information on the fight to help more mothers and children survive and thrive, please check out Save the Children’s new “State of the World’s Mothers”  report at www.savechildren.org/world-mothers.

Jane McCasland is a happily married mother of two living in Midlothian, Texas