Spotlight -Warrior Family Books For NICU - Ella's Way

Warrior Family Books For NICU

Each time they visited their tiny son, they worried and wondered about how they could help and begin to bond with Anthony.

"The nurses suggested opening up the sides of the incubator so that he could hear our voices," Adrianna explained. "I would adjust the chair so I was right next to him and read. If he was having a bad day, I swear that hearing our voices helped calm him down, and it calmed us too."

Anthony Costanzo was born on May 7th, 2020 at 4:41pm, weighing in at 1 lbs. 9 oz. He entered the world at the very tender age of 24 weeks of gestation and as a micro-preemie, stayed in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Brigham & Women's Hospital (Boston) for four months with his loving and devoted parents, Joe and Adrianna Costanzo of Franklin, MA at his side.

This was the beginning of a very special daily story time for the Costanzo family and the impetus for Warrior Family Books For NICU, a campaign to help other parents bond with their newborns in the intensive care units of two Boston hospitals, including Brigham & Women's Hospital and Tufts Medical Center.

"We would love to help give this opportunity to the families that have a baby or babies in the NICU to bond together during a very difficult time," said Joe Costanzo. "When a baby is in the NICU, it can be tough for parents/family to physically bond with their children due to the breathing tubes, incubator and rest time needed for the baby to grow. Accepting this is hard and having a book to read to your baby really helps to bond everyone together."

Last year, the couple began collecting books for the Brigham & Women’s Hospital NICU. “The Brigham’s NICU has a literacy reading program, and when Anthony got out of the NICU and he was doing so well, we wanted to give back to Brigham, so we did that collection. Because of the generosity of everyone, we kept getting more books. We made another donation, and that’s when Tufts’ (NICU literacy program) contacted us asking us to do the same thing for them.” Since then, says Joe, “We’ve donated 1,228 books – to Brigham & Women’s three times, and once to Tufts.”

The family isn’t stopping there. They recently set up their “Warrior Family Books For NICU” tent at the Franklin, MA Farmers Market, where they successfully collected new and gently used baby books destined for Boston NICU’s.

Since inception, Warrior Family Books For NICU continues to grow!

"We have a dream of being able to eventually do this for other NICU's outside of Boston," said Joe.

As for little Anthony, he now weighs in at a whopping 34 lbs. and is a student at the Franklin, MA Early Child Development preschool where he enjoys his construction toys, bubbles, water play and of course, books.

He is “doing great with his motor skills, playing soccer and T-Ball this year," Adrianna and Joe are happy to say. Their "miracle baby" Anthony is now a healthy, happy 4-year old and a shining example of his parent's love, faith, gratitude and purpose!

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To show your support for Warrior Family Books for NICU,
purchase a book in their donation library and we will ship it directly to them.

Warrior Family Books for NICU Donation Library

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