Mt. Sinai Preemies Celebrate With Annual Party

Children of all ages who were premature at birth celebrated their life Friday at Mount Sinai Hospital on Miami Beach.

Doctor Jose Antonio Adams, chief of the neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital, said the unit values the celebration.

"This is probably one of the best days of the year for us," he said.

The annual holiday party for the neonatal unit brings back babies who came through the hospital and defied the odds. Adams said the event is it humbling.

"Humbling from the fact that not only are these kids alive, many of them wouldn't have been alive 10 years ago," he said.

German twins born three months early at the hospital are a perfect example. They had less than a 50 percent chance of survival. Now they are seven-months-old.

"Everyday I am very grateful to have them well," Joann German said. "Because there were many things that could have gone wrong. Because they were born so extremely premature that many things didn't develop. Everyday that I look at them I'm very grateful to have them the way they are."

Jacob Leveille,12, born three months early, said he is also grateful.

"I thank the nurses because it was very nice of them to help me because I'm still here now," he said. "If they didn't, I wouldn't be here."

Caught up in the holiday rush of gifts and wants, the Mount Sinai NICU said they hold the annual holiday party to remind themselves sometimes the best presents do come in small packages.

"We look after these babies when they were like one pound or less," NICU nurse Diana Lindo said. "And to see them come up like this, walking, talking, doing everything right… it is just so fulfilling."

The hospital has been holding the party for more than 15 years.