Premature baby prompts couple to donate to Stevens’ car bed program

After a healthy pregnancy, Marc and Linda Renner’s son, Alex, unexpectedly was born one month premature in May at Stevens Hospital.

Little Alex, who weighed in at 5 pounds, 6 ounces, was in the hospital for less than a week before his parents were given the OK to take him home to Marysville.

But first, Alex, like all “preemies” born at Stevens, had to pass the “car-seat test” to make sure he could fit safely and snuggly in the seat .

Debbie Styers, charge nurse in the special-care nursery, said that babies are tested by being placed in car seats for one hour. If their heart rate drops below 80 beats per minute, they fail the test.

Some premature babies have less muscle tone than others and cannot tolerate sitting up on their own, said Styers. Their neck and head will flop over and keep their body from receiving enough oxygen.

Much to the Renners’ disappointment, their first-born child was not car-seat ready and needed to travel in a specially designed car bed in which Alex could lie down during the trip.

The problem was a car bed has to be special ordered and the one Stevens had to loan was still being cleaned after use by another tiny traveler. Linda Renner recalled how painful it was to go home empty-handed and having to delay Alex’s homecoming another day.

“It was hard, but I knew he was safe,” Alex’s mom said. “Having to leave him there again was a big melt-down moment for me as a new mom.”

Although disappointed, the experience did not dampen her enthusiasm for Stevens. “They were so good to us at the hospital, from the moment we walked into the door of the emergency room,” said Linda Renner, who is a dentist and knows something about patient care.

The next day the Renners returned to Stevens and a car bed with a freshly laundered liner the nursery staff dried by tucking it into a toasty warm incubator, recalled the excited mother.

The experience inspired the Renners to donate four car beds to the Stevens special care nursery. Each bed cost between $65 and $75, which is prohibitively expensive for some new parents, especially since some children – like Alex – only need special transport for a couple of weeks.

Some companies also rent them.

“Imagine being a less fortunate family. What could they do?” Marc Renner asked. “For somebody scraping by, that is a lot of money to spend on something you are only going to use for three weeks.”

The Renners also donated their son’s hard-to-find, premature-size baby clothing to Stevens. “They are surprisingly hard to find,” observed Linda Renner, whose son is now a healthy 14 pounds.

“A lot of families can’t afford the fees to rent a car bed or they have limited transportation and can’t get to a store to order them,” Styers said. “It is very nice to have these beds as a resource here in South County.”