PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — Rocio “Rosy” Pacheco said strangers helped to give her son Marcus a fighting chance, and she wants other mothers to know in case they need to reach out for help too.
Pacheco said she was 20 weeks pregnant when her baby was diagnosed with a lung mass. About 10 weeks later, she rushed to the hospital. She went into labor five days later.
“I had over 30 people in my room because I had the morning team and the midnight team,” Pacheco said.
Marcus was born at a weight of 3 pounds, 10 ounces. He needed to be in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
“I got to hold him for maybe five seconds because he started going into respiratory distress,” Pacheco said.
Marcus needed a nasogastric tube inserted through the nose, down the esophagus, and into his stomach to deliver nutrition.
“Obviously, he couldn’t eat orally,” Pacheco said.
The lactation team helped to get Pacheco to start pumping.
“They came in and asked me if I wanted donor’s milk, and my very main goal was to breastfeed my baby,” Pacheco said, adding, she later accepted the help.
Nichole Salisbury, a nurse and lactation consultant at Broward Health Coral Springs, said breast milk is known as liquid gold for a reason. She said the first couple of days of breast milk provided natural immunity.
“Babies who are breastfed have a lower risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, diabetes ... as they get older,” Salisbury said. “We see babies have less asthma, allergies as they get older, ear infections, and even certain childhood cancers.”
Salisbury said Broward Health Coral Springs works in partnership with the Mothers’ Milk Bank of Florida, a nonprofit organization in Orlando.
“The moms are tested with blood work first, and then that is arranged from her doctor, and it goes to the milk bank,” Salisbury said. “They get the results, and then the milk is also tested, and it’s pasteurized.”
Salisbury said breast pumps are important. For Pacheco, it was an emotional process, but she was grateful. Marcus consumed both Pacheco’s milk and donor’s milk through syringes.
“It helped him so, so much ... So to them, whoever donated, thank you because without that I wouldn’t, it would have been added pressure even more,” Pacheco said.
They will be celebrating Marcus’s first birthday at the end of this month.
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