Breast milk rally: Brennagh better, mum stunned
A mother’s desperate plea for breast milk to keep her terminally ill daughter from dying of malnutrition has gathered countrywide support.
Kathleen Mckay has been taking 50 phone calls a day from mothers as far away as Australia and the United States, giving her daughter Brennagh, 11, who was born with a rare genetic disorder called trisomy 18, a glimmer of hope.
Two trucking companies are transporting milk to their Feilding home from cities such as Auckland and Christchurch at no charge, and Fisher & Paykel has given the family a freezer to stockpile milk.
Mckay’s ‘‘little fighter’’ developed gastric acid in August that looked like green slime and blocked her feeding tube, and she wasn’t tolerating food.
Her weight had dropped about 10 kilograms and, at the suggestion of another mother, Mckay started feeding Brennagh breast milk three weeks ago.
It was a success. She tolerated the milk and could handle larger volumes than other foods ingested through her tube.
It prompted a nationwide plea for more, which empathetic mothers from around the globe have responded to.
Mckay was startled to find 47 messages on her phone following a Manawatu¯ Standard article and quickly set up an ‘‘admin team’’ of seven friends to respond. Meanwhile, Brennagh’s condition improved.
‘‘It’s quite incredible,’’ Mckay said.
‘‘It’s mind-blowing. We’re really thankful. It’s a bigger response than we expected. It’s been a really big ask, but she’s working like a little baby now.
‘‘The amount of husbands that have dropped by with packets of milk because their wife said to drop some off has been funny.’’
Mckay took photos of Brennagh during a tough 12-week period, and it wasn’t until recently that she looked back at them and noticed she was severely malnourished.
Brennagh wasn’t dying from trisomy 18; she was dying of malnutrition, Mckay said.
‘‘I found it really sickening. I just kept thinking where is this going and I was scared.
‘‘I still just cry looking at those photographs.’’
She weighed about 13kg. Her ideal weight is 20 to 25kg and doctors thought it was the end of her journey, Mckay said.
Brennagh used to ingest just enough food for a 2-year-old, but now she was having about 1.4 litres of breast milk a day.
Her bowel is functioning and there’s no more ‘‘green stuff’’.
‘‘I keep looking at her and thinking ‘are we doing the right thing? Are we pushing it too far?’,’’ Mckay said.
‘‘But I think I’ve got to stick with it.’’