Little Girl With Bowel Disease Kept Alive On Donated Breastmilk
Posted by Kate Tuttle at 12:30 PM on February 4, 2009
Two-year-old Grace Vaught of Westminster, Colorado, has what her doctors say is a very bad case of inflammatory bowel disease. According to an article in the Longmont Times-Call, beginning around a year ago the girl would vomit repeatedly each night; it was obvious there was something terribly wrong. As her symptoms grew worse, Grace began refusing to eat or drink anything, at one point going three days with no food or drink. Desperate, her mother gave her a bottle of pumped breastmilk (she was already breastfeeding a second daughter, Grace’s baby sister). When Grace was able to keep the breastmilk down, Stacey (a mother of six) attempted to pump enough to feed both girls but found her supply inadequate to the task.
She turned to Mother’s Milk Bank, but found the cost prohibitive (it would cost $US200 a day to provide the milk Grace needs). The bank did respond to her plight with a $US1,000 donation of breast milk. Vaught then turned to her church, and through it to a virtual army of breastfeeding mothers. First, the Samaritans Ministry Christian Health Care raised $US21,000 to help buy breast milk for Grace; then, through a group called mamasource.com, women at Vaught’s church connected with other women in the area. Before long, dozens of local women began pumping a little extra every day for Grace.
Vaught says she’s beginning to introduce fruits, vegetables, rice and organic meats into Grace’s diet, but the three 180ml bottles of breast milk are still her staple. From the article:
“There is no textbook thing about this,” Vaught said. “I have to be creative. I credit attention to what she eats and prayer.
“She can eat. She’s happy. Her hair is growing, and she’s got energy.
“I don’t know how long it has to be this way (drinking breast milk), but I feel like it’s getting better,” Vaught added. “I am thankful she can eat and she can live.”
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