LWB Community

Usually, the final day of a medical mission is a bit slower, as the team winds down a week that is often physically exhausting. That was not the case today in Uganda. The doctors and nurses were determined to help as many children as possible receive surgery, which brought the total number of operations completed this week to 187.  Last month, we thought Dr. Situma was dreaming big at 100 surgeries, but clearly, with such an enormous need for hurting children, that dream had to grow even higher.

Twins Sawyer and Lizzie were born late last summer. After their parents were no longer able to care for them, they entered our Cambodia Foster Care program when they were three months old along with their older brothers Henry and Howard. Although Sawyer is the first-born of the twins, Lizzie has him beat on size. We love her extra baby rolls!

Sweet Ana and her twin sister Lisa came to the Mukono Baby home in January under very sad circumstances. Their mother had died soon after their birth from post-partum complications, possibly as a result of malaria. When the twins first entered the Mukono Baby Room, blood work indicated that Lisa was suffering from congenital malaria, in which the parasites are transmitted either during pregnancy or during labor. Congenital malaria can result in prematurity and slower weight gain in newborns.

In early January, we learned of twin newborn girls in Uganda whose mother passed away the day after their birth. What an enormous loss for these preemie sisters. It’s heartbreaking to think of any mom losing her life giving birth. Maternal deaths vary greatly around the world, but the highest rates are still found primarily in Africa. Uganda has made great strides in reducing maternal deaths over the last five years, but their maternal death rate is still a far too high 336 per 100,000 live births.

Earlier this year, Love Without Boundaries was contacted by an orphanage in rural Anhui, China, that had just admitted twin baby girls.

The tiny preemies had been found with a note saying their parents were unable to afford their medical care. Even as our hearts filled with sadness over the family’s enormous loss, we knew it was urgent to get the baby girls to the hospital. Thanks to our wonderful supporters, Sydney and Reagan’s journey of healing with LWB had begun. Read more.

Twins Reagan and Sydney are smiling thanks in part to their Prenan formula. These adorable sisters were born prematurely in February, and Prenan is especially formulated for premature infants like them. It helps to increase weight and rapid growth in infants with low birth weight. Don’t these sisters look wonderful?

Sometimes the standard, off-the-grocery shelf formula isn’t able to meet the nutritional needs of a medically fragile child, and a specialized formula is the key to helping them heal. Read more.

Harley and James, the formerly conjoined twins, were treated to lunch this week by some of our wonderful volunteers in Shanghai! Their mission? To delivery a very special package from a 96-year-old grandmother in Missouri. Read more.

A few years after Love Without Boundaries was founded, it became clear that we needed to answer a very important question: What can we do to help children who are ready for discharge from the hospital after surgery, but who aren’t ready to return to an orphanage?

It was vital that we figure out how to bridge that gap for the most fragile children in our medical program. The answer came in the form of Heartbridge Healing Home which opened its doors in 2006. Read more.

First and foremost, we want to thank everyone who has donated to help Harley and James, the adorable twin boys born conjoined at the end of October. Harley and James’ parents are extremely young  — just 20 years old — and are from a small village in rural Guizhou. The boys are joined at their pelvis area, sharing one liver but thankfully having two bladders and four kidneys. The operation to separate them is expected to be extremely complex.

Read more.

It’s September 2003. A young couple living in rural China gives birth to sham bowtie – twins. But their hopes are dashed when they discovered their babies have cleft lips and palates that not only disfigured their tiny faces but left them unable to nurse. Without either the means or the knowledge, and certainly not the insurance, to care for one child with cleft, let alone two, their quandary was immense.

After three difficult days, they decided the twins’ best hope was the local orphanage. So poor they did not even have paper to write a note, the parents tore off a piece of a brown paper bag and wrote these heartfelt words: “Dear caring people, we are poor and unable to provide for our twins. Please keep them. They were born the 12th of September, 2003.” Read more.