Sweet Hannah Sloane Peter was born at home on February 7th at 12:47am. The next day, before the heel prick test that’s a routine part of newborn screening, Hannah’s foot was wrapped in a warm cloth to get the blood flowing. This is common practice. Apparently there was a tiny heat pocket in the cloth that went unnoticed and she sustained a burn on her foot which blistered and eventually burst. She didn’t appear to be in any pain, but they followed up with their pediatrician to keep track of the situation as it progressed. The site of the injury began to worsen the following day so they took her into Urgent Care.

In an unexpected whirlwind, the doctors there sent Hannah in an ambulance to the ER at Rady’s Children’s Hospital. Doctors at Rady’s decided to keep her overnight though they believed the wound was superficial and it just needed watching and dressing. Upon observation, it was decided she would be better cared for at the UCSD Burn Center, so she was transferred there for several procedures.

Lauren was understandably shocked to learn that what doctors originally thought was a superficial wound turned into something requiring antibiotics and multiple operations for her 4-day-old baby.

The first of 3 debridements was this morning - the purpose of these procedures being to clean out the wounds on her foot. There’s another procedure scheduled for tomorrow morning, and another after that.

We believe Hannah is in good, capable hands with her parents and medical professionals. She has passed all tests with flying colors and you’d hardly know she was undergoing such a difficult time if you didn’t see her tiny bandaged foot. She is beautiful and precious, and Lauren is doing an incredible job of maintaining normal newborn routines as much as one possibly can in a little hospital room with no actual bed to sleep on, running on next to zero sleep, having just given birth a few days ago.

Obviously, this nightmare is not the way they pictured their first few days of this postpartum season going. Adjusting to an expanded family is challenging enough, let alone driving back and forth 2+ hours round trip from home to hospital, trying to maintain a sense of normalcy in the face of uncertainty for their sweet 3-year-old, Amelia.

If you know Lauren, you know she’s the first in line to help friends and even people she barely knows with anything and everything, and she never asks for anything in return. She’s so independent that she’ll probably hate that we’re organizing this at all, but we were willing to risk that to show her how much we love her and baby Hannah.

There are a lot of practical needs that we can meet as a community - meals, home services, therapy, mounting medical bills, etc. Please help us love on the Peter family right now and ease this extra financial burden for them. ❤️