Coney Island Hospital Hosts Reunion Party For Premature Babies
Coney Island Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) held its second annual reunion party on October 1 to celebrate all of the preemie babies born to their top-ranked maternity ward—including the only set of triplets ever born at the hospital, now 16-years-old.
Presented with the Healthgrades Maternity Care Excellence Award for the third year in a row this past summer, Coney Island Hospital’s Level II NICU caters to babies born around 32 weeks or greater gestation and provides care for full-term newborns that need close monitoring. A baby is considered premature when it is born under 37 out of the estimated 40 full weeks of a pregnancy, according to Head Nurse and event coordinator, Kathleen Marino.
“We like to see what they look like after they’ve gone,” said Marino. “We know how hard they struggled as a little preemie infant and now they’re all big and we like to get together.”
Celebrating a milestone birthday, triplets Alyssa, Larissa, and Zaim Judeh cut their “sweet sixteen” birthday cake in the same hospital where they spent over 40 days as preemie patients, each born under three pounds.
Peggy Judeh, mother to the triplets and their 5-year-old brother Noah, expressed her gratitude and familiarity with the hospital. “I’m always here all the time,” she said. “I still bring them here and I had my other son here. I just love Coney Island and they saved my kids’ lives.”
Dr. Jerry Watman, a pediatrician with Coney Island Hospital for 32 years, said that he “took care of the triplets many years ago.”
“The March of Dimes even invited us,” Watman said. “That was the first and last set of triplets born in this hospital.”
“We’re very happy that everyone is coming back,” said Dr. Chris Papazafiratou, the hospital’s Director of Neonatology, about the importance of these events and why the hospital hosts them. “We would like to see the parents every year and see the kids and how they’re doing.”
In attendance where about 15 families, with former preemies now happy, healthy, and ranging in age from five months, to 28-years—Marino’s own daughter, Christine, now a social worker, was admitted into the NICU herself 28 years ago.
“They [the children] love seeing the nurses who took care of them,” Marino added. “It means a lot to Coney Island to try to keep this place a community, to show that we do care about all the patients and their families.”
The NICU staff and nurses were also in attendance at the event along with Dr. Warren M. Seigel, Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics, and Althea Senior-Morris, Associate Director of Nursing, both who gave short speeches at the podium following Marino. The hospital hosted a raffle and gave out costume prizes to the lucky little ones that dressed up.
— Anna Spivak
