WINFIELD, Ill. (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A reunion this weekend is bringing together former NICU patients and the nurses who cared for them at Central DuPage Hospital.
NICU Medical Director Dr. Jeffrey Loughead said they've been holding the reunions for about 15 years and both parties see the impact of them.
The medical staff gets to see how much the once-tiny babies have grown and the parents get to check in with the nurses and doctors they bonded with during those first difficult days, weeks or months.
"We have teenagers, now young adults, who used to be very small, premature infants — some of which used to be quite ill — it's exciting to see them," Loughead said.
Among those attending this weekend is Amy Robertson of Warrenville and her daughter Paige. Paige is 20 months old now but was only 24 weeks along in the pregnancy when she was born.
She spent 252 days in the NICU at CDH and Lurie Children's downtown.
Because Robertson and her husband didn't want to know the baby's gender before birth, they called it "the pineapple" so the nurses decorated Paige's bassinet with pineapples.
"It is fun we are finally able to be on that side of it," Robertson said of the NICU experience.
Weighing less than a pound at birth, Loughead said Paige is the smallest survivor they've had out of 8,500 babies in 21 years — about the size of a can of soda.
More than 500 former patients, their relatives and medical staffers are expected to attend the reunion on Sunday at Danada House in Wheaton.