College student and NICU graduate reunites with former care team
Eighteen years ago, nurses in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at CHKD watched over a fragile newborn girl not knowing if she would survive without extensive brain damage. Now, as a healthy, happy teenager, that same girl returned to the NICU where she and her mother were able to reunite with some of the same care team members who helped to save her life.
During her birth at a neighboring hospital, Nai’lah Powell had suffered severe oxygen deprivation. She was transferred to CHKD so Dr. Thomas Bass, a CHKD neonatologist at the time, could use a new technique he was studying to stop her brain cells from dying by keeping her body temperature at 91 degrees.
The nursing team that oversaw Nai’lah’s care for several weeks never imagined they would reunite with this baby years later, telling her firsthand in between hugs and tears of joy how she was one of the first infants at CHKD to have cooling therapy – now called therapeutic hypothermia – to counter the effects of oxygen deprivation at birth. Since then, therapeutic hypothermia has become standard of care for newborns at risk of brain damage from oxygen deprivation. In 2024, more than 65 of CHKD’s NICU patients received this type of therapy.
During their reunion, the team gave Nai’lah and her mom, Rita, who now live in Maryland, a quick tour of the NICU, which has significantly changed since Nai’lah was a patient.
Julia Lomax, a CHKD neonatal nurse practitioner who was part of Nai’lah’s care team, recalled how elated everyone in the NICU was when an EEG showed that Nai’lah’s brain activity was normal. “You had everyone rooting for you,” Lomax said during the visit. Nai’lah’s incredible recovery with cooling therapy was featured in the hospital’s KidStuff magazine more than a year later when she was a toddler and hitting all her developmental milestones.
Today, Nai’lah continues to thrive. She currently takes online classes through Liberty University to attain her associate’s degree in biblical studies.
“We always knew you would do great things – and you have,” said MaryBeth Sanders, one of the nurses who took care of Nai’lah in the NICU. “Seeing you today is why we do what we do.”
For Nai’lah and her mom, the reunion was a chance to tell everyone in the NICU how grateful they are for the care they received 18 years ago. “You don’t know what you mean to us,” Rita said.
Published in CHKD's KidStuff Magazine, Summer 2025
Written by Alice Warchol • Photograph by Ken Mountain
