About Miracle Babies
“Better, healthier outcomes for newborns and their families challenged by prematurity and sickness.”
Miracle Babies Foundation is Australia’s leading organisation supporting premature and sick newborns, their families and the hospitals that
care for them.
Every year in Australia around 48,000 newborn babies require the help of a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) or Special Care Nursery (SCN).
27,000 of these babies are born premature and up to 1,000 babies lose their fight for life.
For families, the experience of having a baby come into the world not as expected or planned is life changing. Without support, this overwhelming and traumatic experience can have lifelong effects on the emotional well-being of these miracle families. It affects the entire family unit.
Since 2005, Miracle Babies Foundation has been passionate in developing and providing vital programs and resources to support and enhance a family’s experience from a high-risk pregnancy, hospital journey with a premature or sick newborn, the transition to home and beyond.
Australia is home to 23 state of the art intensive care units designed to meet the unique and critical needs of our earliest and sickest babies. Working with health professionals on the joint agenda of better outcomes for families, Miracle Babies also provides informative education and insight on a family’s experience and funding for equipment, resources and research.
Mission:
- Support, education and resources for families of premature and sick newborns from conception to birth and the years beyond.
- Working in partnership with healthcare providers and professional organisations in education, training, funding, research and resources.
- Advocate to positively influence the long-term outcome for families.
- Create meaningful communities that empower families and children to reach their full potential.
- Drive innovation and quality to facilitate improved care and healthier outcomes.
Vision:
'Better, healthier outcomes for newborns and their families challenged by prematurity or sickness.'
Values & Qualities:
Empathy, Families, Commitment, Quality, Transparency, Compassion, Innovation, Connection, Collaboration, Community and Respect.
Our History:
Initiated in 2005 by Melinda Cruz, and with the help of Liverpool Hospitals Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU), Miracle Babies Foundation was formed by a group of mothers of premature and sick newborns. All bonded together by their NICU experiences, they shared the same common desire of wanting to support other families of miracle babies and give back to the wonderful hospitals that care for them.
Together, Miracle Babies and Liverpool Hospital worked on an in-hospital parent support program, allowing current NICU families the opportunity to speak to past parents, and on expanding the already running, but resource limited premmie playgroup to reach even more NICU families.
As positive outcomes from these parent support programs became evident, Miracle Babies was invited to take part in several nursing conferences and training courses offering a parents perspective of the NICU experience. This introduced our programs to staff from other NICUs around the country who began inquiring about extending our services to more families.
In June 2009, the team at Miracle Babies were given a big surprise by the Channel 9 TV program, Random Acts of Kindness. The team was given a wonderful night out in Sydney, while unknown to them, the Random Acts team were remodelling Miracle Babies Head Office. The team received brand new furniture, a new boardroom, computers, laptops and a call centre telephone system. This gave Miracle Babies the tools and exposure needed to move from a local charity to a national Foundation very quickly.
Beginning as a small local charity, Miracle Babies were overwhelmed and very blessed by the generous support of the local community. Their help enabled us to grow and offer the very best support to NICU families and provide Liverpool Hospitals NICU with much needed equipment and resources. As a national foundation, this support is made available to families and NICUs Australia wide.
Founding members at the Inaugural Ball 2006 Picture: The passionate founding miracle mums at the official launch dinner of Miracle Babies in June 2006.
From left to right: Andrea Hendry, Anne Galuzen, Alex Brown, Kylie Pussell, Melinda Cruz, Jenene Morgan, Lea Tidyman, Naomi Rohr and Amanda Baker.
Annual Reports:
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