St. Luke’s NICU Recipient of Penguin Nutritional Warmers™

March of Dimes, Millennium Marketing & Yeast Family Partner to Donate NICU’s First Warmers

For Immediate Release
July 24, 2007

KANSAS CITY – Nurses at St. Luke’s Hospital, which delivers more than 6,000 babies each year, gathered July 24 to receive the hospital’s first ever Penguin™ Nutritional Warmer donated by March of Dimes and Dr. John and Barbara Yeast. Four units, 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.

“When this item came up for auction, we were very excited about the opportunity to bring it to St. Luke’s,” said Dr. Yeast, Director of Medical Affairs at St Luke’s. “We are excited to have these units in our NICU and hope that they will benefit many babies.”

Valued at $5,000, the Penguin™ Nutritional Warmer 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.

“For years in the NICU, I saw fellow nurses manually preparing breast milk and formula for babies – and often times the temperatures were all over the map,” Shields said. “For these delicate, vulnerable babies in the NICU, preparing nourishment at the right temperature is vital, and my product enables nurses to do this.”

Scott Norman, Founder and President of the Millennium Marketing Group in Overland Park, originally donated the Penguin™ 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 the Yeasts.

St. Luke’s Hospital features the highest level of NICU in Kansas City as well as the only March of Dimes NICU Family Support Specialist in the Greater Kansas area.

For additional information:
www.saintlukeshealthsystem.org
www.crecheinnovations.com
www.marchofdimes.com