I am Mom to a healthy, smart, funny, amazing 5-year-old thanks to the staff at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) and BLES®(Neosurf).
On July 11, 2012, my husband and I got a call from the Children’s Aid Society about a baby girl who was ready to be discharged from the hospital. We were thrilled, excited to welcome a new baby into our home but when the social workers came to our house to present Aislynn’s file our joy turned to apprehension. Aislynn was born at 27 weeks gestational age and weighed 850 g with neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (NRDS). By the time we got the call, Aislynn had been in the NICU for almost 3 months and we were told that based on her extreme prematurity, she may have profound medical complications. Despite this warning, we decided to meet Aislynn that same night. Although she was almost 3 months old, she looked so tiny in her crib, and she had already quadrupled her weight. Aislynn was connected to several wires and had a nasal prong so we had to pull a chair close to the crib to hold her. She was precious and slept soundly in our arms…it was love at first sight.
Any reservations we had about her medical diagnoses quickly vanished as we snuggled that sweet baby. From her medical records, we know that one dose of BLES® (Neosurf) was administered to Aislynn within the first few hours of life. Despite being diagnosed with Stage 1/2 retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) at the time of discharge from the hospital, Aislynn has no long-term complications today regarding her vision or pulmonary function. By her visit to the Developmental Follow-Up Clinic at 11 months (8 months corrected), Aislynn was in the 50th percentile for height, weight, head circumference and developmental milestones. Ultimately, Aislynn was discharged from the clinic at age 2, a true success story!
Today, Aislynn is healthy, intelligent, active and happy. She is very athletic; she attends gymnastics classes, skating lessons, and she is also an enthusiastic soccer player. Aislynn started junior kindergarten in the fall and is an avid learner; she brings home books every night which she can read to us independently, she can print her letters and is also starting to spell phonetically. Although, we were not present for her harrowing beginning, we know that BLES® (Neosurf) is a life-saving drug that contributed to Aislynn’s survival. My husband and I believe Aislynn is a miracle; to have had such a rough start to life and no long-term complications is truly astonishing! We are eternally grateful to the staff at LHSC for saving our daughter and to the staff at BLES Biochemicals Inc. for manufacturing this life-saving drug.
