The birth of a baby is usually a joyous, life-changing experience, but sometimes things don’t go as planned. Babies can be born too early, very sick, or too small to go home with their parents just yet.

Mater Little Miracles was born out of a desire to provide the best possible start to life for premature and seriously ill babies cared for at the Mater Mothers’ Hospitals - the largest maternity service in Australia. These babies can be born as young as 24 weeks, weigh as little as 400 grams, and come from all over Queensland.

To assist with the invaluable services this organisation provides, the Power Tynan Charitable Trust recently presented Sandy Pettit from Mater Little Miracles with a $1,500 cheque.

"Each year around 2,000 sick and premature babies rely on Mater's Neonatal Critical Care Unit for specialised care,” said Sandy. “Not only do generous donations like these go towards saving lives, the money is also used to assist research into possible solutions for a range of challenges that unborn and premature babies face.”

The Power Tynan Charitable Trust has donated over $130,000 since its inception in 2010, and is open to the firm's staff, clients and all members of the public to contribute funds. Each quarter, the staff vote to determine which charities the Trust will support for the three month period.

Mater Little Miracles was nominated as Power Tynan HR Manager Tricia Jenkins experienced their support first hand when her son Darcy was born in Toowoomba at 29 weeks, 11 weeks premature. Whilst he was looked after by the great staff at the Toowoomba Base Hospital Special Care Nursery, Darcy required the help of a neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU).

“I cannot acknowledge enough all of their support for Darcy, from his retrieval team who cared for him on his trip from Toowoomba to Brisbane, to all the staff at the Mater Mothers’ NICU,” said Tricia. “The Doctors and nursing staff were phenomenal.”

“The life of a NICU parent is quite daunting, with all the different procedures, tests and machines that you and your child encounter on a daily basis. Darcy was in the Mater Mothers’ Hospital for 10 weeks, and in that time underwent two surgeries - it certainly was not an easy road. Darcy is a Little Mater Miracle, and will always be fortunate to call himself so.”

For more information on Mater Little Miracles, or to support this very worthy cause, visit http://www.materlittlemiracles.org.au