Children’s Mercy Recipient of Penguin Nutritional Warmer™

March of Dimes, Millennium Marketing Group & Contract Furnishings Partner to Donate NICU’s First Warmer

For Immediate Release
July 12, 2007

Nurses at Children’s Mercy Hospital, one of the top pediatric medical centers in the nation, gathered July 12 to receive the hospital’s first ever Penguin™ Nutritional Warmer donated by March of Dimes and Contract Furnishings, Inc. The unit, given to March of Dimes by the Millennium Marketing Group, will be used by Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) nurses to automatically warm mothers’ breast milk to accurate body temperature.

KANSAS CITY – “We are so grateful to all parties involved here today for their support and donation of this item to our NICU,” said Dr. Howard Kilbride of Children’s Mercy. “This unit is an important asset to our nurses and will aid in our hospital’s care of babies born premature or with birth defects.”

Valued at $5,000, the Penguin™ Nutritional Warmer (Penguin™ 4.0) was invented by neonatal nurse Jan Shields. The unit is the first of its kind and eliminates the problems of unreliable, time-consuming breast milk warming by nurses.

At Children’s Mercy, 80 to 100 percent of mothers provide breast milk for their baby during its stay in the NICU, creating a large demand for warmings up to four times a day for each newborn.

Scott Norman, Founder and President of the Millennium Marketing Group in Overland Park, originally donated the Penguin™ 4.0 to March of Dimes on behalf of the Creche Innovations. The March of Dimes in turn put the item up for auction at its Champagne Dinner/Wine Fest event on May 20 and sold it to bidders Jean Paul Wong and Steve Stroade, co-owners of Contract Furnishings.

“We jumped at this opportunity because Children’s Mercy and March of Dimes are both very close to our hearts,” Wong said. Through the generosity of Contract Furnishings and Dr. John Yeast, March of Dimes raised enough money to purchase an additional warmer that will be presented to another area hospital NICU on July 24.

For additional information:
www.childrensmercy.com
www.crecheinnovations.com
www.marchofdimes.com