MISSOULA — “You're sitting there in our situation not even able to really touch our baby, not hold our baby for days on end. You don't feel human at that point,” said Codi Brandt-Ward, Jackson’s mom and president of Jackson Peter Ward Strong.
Having a complication during childbirth is every parent's worst nightmare. And often during those challenging times, it's the small things that count. Unfortunately, it’s often hard to get the basic necessities.
That is changing at Missoula's Community Medical Center as one nonprofit is helping deliver the basic necessities that parents in a worst-case scenario desperately need.
“There are a few resources for parents who have babies transferred in. Often, they would have to run to the store themselves. And so, this is going to alleviate that need to leave the hospital and leave their baby's bedside, and they'll be able to just stay with their baby and bond and be with them at all times, which is really important to the family,” said CMC neonatologist Kristin Veneman.
Jackson Peter Ward Strong is a non-profit started by Codi Brandt-Ward and her mom, Katie Northcutt, after Codi’s son, Jackon, passed away at 10 days old.
In memory of her son, Codi and her mom wanted to honor him by providing basic necessities to families that find themselves in a similar situation to their own.
“It became a moment of, she said, 'mom, will you go buy me a T-shirt?' I would rush immediately and go buy a T-shirt. Mom, I need some deodorant. I would go buy deodorant, because in that situation where I cannot fix things, anything I can do to make life easier for my child, OK, I'm going to go spend hundreds of dollars on stupid things that you're not going to need. But at this moment, they're not stupid,” said Katie Northcutt, director of Jackson Peter Ward Strong and grandmother to Jackson.
Now, five years after their journey began of providing families with deodorant, toothpaste, dental floss, razors and many other things, they are providing their survival kits to those at Community Medical Center.
“It's just a resounding, oh my gosh, thank you, this was the most amazing gift we could have been given in the situations that we're in. We've been thrown into the NICU blindsided and brought an overnight bag to the hospital thinking we were going to be home the next day, and now here I am in the NICU and I can actually take care of myself,” explained Brandt-Ward.
Jackson Peter Ward Strong distributes parent survival kits in five states across dozens of hospitals. Visit https://jacksonpeterwardstrong.com/ to learn how you can help.
