TRULY acting in line with the foundation's motto "Committed to Caring," President and Founder of the Wellbeing Foundation (WBF) Africa, Mrs. Toyin Saraki, on Wednesday personally saw to the trans-national procurement of a special premature baby formula within a matter of hours to save the lives of two surviving babies out of the quadruplets born at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, Kwara State.

On May 24, four premature babies were born to Samuel and Joy Chukwukaelo weighing 0.9, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 kg respectively, at UITH through caesarean section.    Asphyxiated at birth, the biggest baby died on May 27 while the smallest of the quadruplets died on May 29 despite the best efforts of the hospital's medical team.

The condition of the surviving two infants remained fragile but stable, and an SOS message was received by the WBF Africa Founder leading to the immediate dispatch of the WBFA Alaafia Kwara Twins and Multiple Births Assistance Unit, which runs longstanding assistance programmes at UITH, as well as the Children's Specialist Hospital Centre, Igboro - both in Kwara.

On assessing the situation, the Wellbeing Foundation Africa Alaafia Kwara Twins and Multiple Births Assistance Unit, led by consultant Hajiya Serifat Abdullahi, noted that the needs of the infants included antibiotics, fluid, diapers and most importantly, a specially constituted pre-term baby formula. While most of these essential commodities could be sourced locally, procuring the pre-term infant formula presented a challenge given the specialised nature of the hospital-use only product.