Alfie healing garden

Helping Alfie Thrive

By Heather, a Children’s National parent

Alfie healing garden

It’s hard to relax when your baby is critically ill. Alfie was born with life-threatening sepsis following possible meconium aspiration. At 2 months, doctors transferred him to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Children’s National.

We were terrified new parents. The transport team was kind and confident and eased our worries. In the NICU, the admitting nurse immediately exclaimed she was in love with Alfie, which further eased our worries. His team included specialists in pulmonology, cardiology, gastroenterology and neurology. They gave us hope that our son would one day have a normal life. Overall, he spent 44 days on extracorporeal life support (ECMO) and 72 days on a ventilator.

Alfie finally came home at 4 months. Now as a toddler, he loves to dance, eat, play and try any food we put in front of him. We will have joyful Christmas with family who have waited so long to spend the holiday with our little miracle baby. 

The people at Children’s National pull off the most incredible things. They gave Alfie ― and all the babies they save ― the chance to grow up and change the world.

A young patient at Children's National Hospital.

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A young patient at Children's National Hospital.