The "BDayVyklyk: First Breath" project has handed a resuscitator to the Cradles of Hope centre in Khmelnytsky

As part of the "BDayVyklyk: First Breath" project initiated by Ukrainian national Kateryna Sadova, on 14 August the 10th resuscitator NeoPuff TM RD-900 was handed over to the Victor Pinchuk Foundation's Cradles of Hope centre operating on the basis of the Khmelnytsky city perinatal centre. Ukrainians concerned about the problem of premature baby treatment have raised UAH 125,365 worth of the device on the Ukrainian Philanthropic Marketplace online platform.

A total of UAH 1,253,650 has been raised as part of the "BDayVyklyk: First Breath" project. To date, 10 devices have been purchased for Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Uzhgorod, Chernihiv, Khmelnytsky (regional and city perinatal centres), Odesa, Kropyvnytsky, Vinnytsya and Sumy.

NeoPuffs are also planned to be installed at the Cradles of Hope partnership centres in Dnipro, Zaporizhzhya, Lviv, Poltava, Rivne and Cherkasy. You can support the project on the website of the Ukrainian Philanthropic Marketplace.

Viktoriya Tereshchuk, head of the neonatal intensive care unit: "Our sincere gratitude to all the benefactors who supported the "BDayVyklyk: First Breath" project. Having this resuscitator in our centre is yet another professional step forward and an additional technical resource to provide timely quality assistance to babies in the delivery room immediately after birth. The device will allow us to make a more extensive use of lung recruitment manoeuver, which has already proved highly effective in the treatment of premature babies."

Established on the basis on the Khmelnytsky maternity hospital by the city council decision in 2007, the Khmelnytsky city perinatal centre provides all kinds of professional, high-tech medical care in the fields of obstetrics, gynaecology, neonatology and neonatal surgery. It also offers outpatient, consultative diagnostic and medical rehabilitation services for women and young children. This obstetric institution has been one of the regional leaders by the number of births per year. Assistance to babies in the most critical conditions is provided by the neonatal intensive care unit, which treats up to 300 children annually.

The Victor Pinchuk Foundation joined the efforts to modernise the unit in 2008, having opened the 13th Cradles of Hope partnership centre on its basis and donated up-to-date medical equipment worth over UAH 817,000 to rescue and treat prematurely born babies