It was so lovely to welcome Samantha Bartlett and her mum Sandra for a visit to our Newborn Intensive & Special Care (NISC) unit this week.
Health editor Grant McArthur featured their visit in a Herald Sun story on Saturday and explained the last time she was at the Women’s, Sam was the size of a pen and had only a 50-50 chance of survival.
“Twenty-three years later and in perfect health, the Corowa woman is living proof of the amazing care the hospital gives premature babies,” he wrote.
Sam was born at just 25 weeks and weighed only 461g and told Grant that she wanted to come for a visit to the Women's to gain an idea of the drama of her first months of life and to finally thank the NISC unit.
She was born early after her mum developed HELLP syndrome — which is life-threatening and the most severe type of pre-eclampsia.
There to greet Sam and Sandra at the Women's NISC this week was Della Forster who also happened to be at Sam's birth 23 years ago.
Prof Forster is now one of the country's leading midwifery researchers.
She is Professor of Midwifery and Maternity Services Research at MCHR, the School of Nursing and Midwifery and the Women’s, and a Chief Investigator on the NHMRC-funded randomised controlled trial of caseload midwifery and the NHMRC-funded randomised trial Diabetes and Antenatal Milk Expressing (DAME).
