Reva Nakra Micropreemie Hurdles to Life

On Jan 8, 2021, I gave birth to my baby girl – Reva Nakra. She was a micro-preemie baby born at 22 weeks + 6 days gestation age. Due to progressive medical technology in last 2-3 decades, neonatal teams at McMaster Children’s Hospital were able to resuscitate her at birth. My husband and I, along with expertise from neonatal doctors had pre-decided that we want to do all that is possible to give a fair chance of survival for our daughter.

She was immediately put into intensive neonatal care after birth, which would support her growth and development to 40 weeks of gestation age. She was under a care of primary nurse, respiratory therapist along with neonatal doctors for her development. Few important items that medical teams were concerned of were her lungs, heart and overall function of her body.

During her stay at NICU, she was immediately put onto High frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) to support the development of her lungs. With her lungs being so premature, they struggled to find the balance between over inflating and not allowing her lungs to collapse in on themselves. On Jan 14th they decided to switch her to a different type of ventilator known as a Jet ventilator. They wanted to do this much earlier but unfortunately due to them only having only one they couldn't.  McMaster’s NICU at this point only has one of these ventilators, but are very strong believers that it is a much safer and more “natural” way to support breathing for micro preemie babies.

YouTube Link - https://youtu.be/50GF36sKy4E

Unfortunately on January 16th despite the best efforts of her whole team, Reva passed away due to her pre mature lungs allowing air to pass out of her lungs. She was also fighting against multiple other issues such as bacterial infection and a PDA in her heart.

My husband and I still find it very difficult to accept what has happened after years of trying and going through multiple fertility treatments that our child conceived naturally will not be coming home to us.

We are starting this fundraiser to help support McMaster’s NICU to hopefully purchase a second Jet ventilator as it may save the life of another pre mature baby down the line and maybe even be the reason hopefully our next child gets to come home with us. McMaster NICU was an incredible team that not only took care of Reva, but also me to a standard of care that we could have never imagined. We will forever be grateful to the type of support and care they provided to our family and hopefully this goes a long way to show it.

Please find it in your heart to support this noble cause and hopefully prevent any other parent having to go through something similar.