Gianna Gabriella Matos was supposed to be born in November, but she had other ideas. She was three months early.
"She was 810 grams, which is one pound, 12 ounces," said Ashley Peoples, Gianna's mother.
Gianna's first few precious months of life were spent in the neonatal intensive care unit at Women and Infants Hospital. She was ready to go home 111 days later.
"Going home was, like, not knowing what I was going to do. But any mother in any situation being in the NICU, any support is major," Peoples said.
Peoples found that support through a hospital program known as Transition Home Plus.
"The program was such a big support for me. Just helping me with numerous things, like me getting counseling, donations for milk," Peoples said.
Pediatric social worker Danielle Fagan is a part of the Transition Home Plus team.
"We do a lot of education with families before they go home," Fagan said. "And then we reinforce it once the babies are home."
The program originally started in 2005, funded by the March of Dimes.
"We realized with the impact of the pilot study that we could make a difference in the lives of the families of our most preterm and vulnerable babies," said Dr. Betty Vohr, the program's founder.
Nationally, the rate of re-hospitalization of preemies is about 50 percent. Vohr said Transition Home Plus has reduced that number.
"We were able to significantly reduce the rates to between about 20 percent and 25 percent at 18 months of age," Vohr said.
And thanks to a $97,000 check from the CVS Caremark Charitable Trust, Women and Infants can expand its reach to include the 30 percent of Massachusetts mothers who deliver at the hospital.
The $97,000 is part of CVS Caremark's nationwide Day of Giving, a one-day event that featured more than $4 million in grants to worthy nonprofits, like the Transition Home Plus.
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