Andrea and Josh Hall were sent on an emotional rollercoaster on Aug. 21 when Andrea went into labor 11 weeks early, and the Port Angeles residents had to put their premature daughter Kennedy into an airplane alone to receive medical care at Overlake Hospital.

“It’s against biology,” said Andrea, who couldn’t leave their Port Angeles-area hospital at the time due to high blood pressure and required surgery post-birth.

The family was thrown into mild chaos as Josh, Andrea and the couple’s first daughter, Austin, 2, shuttled back and forth between Port Angeles and Bellevue.

“That first time, it was the weirdest feeling ever, driving away and leaving your baby,” Josh said.

Seven weeks later, baby Kennedy is thriving, rapidly gaining weight and so far evading the medical problems that can plague premature babies.

The first four weeks after birth are a critical time for preemies. Without the last trimester of growth in utero, Kennedy missed important bone, brain and lung development. She also was at risk for necrotizing enterocolitis, a condition that affects premature infants where portions of the bowel undergo tissue death, or necrosis.

“It’s a neonatologist’s worst nightmare, said Shilpi Chabra, the medical director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Overlake. The condition is one of the leading causes of mortality in premature babies.

The staff at Overlake credits some of Kennedy’s good fortune to a new milk fortifier that Kennedy was the first to use.

The hospital is the first NICU in the Northwest to offer the human-milk-based fortifier Prolacta for the most premature infants. Kennedy is the first infant to receive the fortifier, which was delivered to the hospital mere days after she arrived.

Unlike other fortifiers that contain cow’s milk, Prolacta is made from concentrated donor milk and fortified with pharmaceutical-grade minerals. The resulting mixture is added to human milk and gives underdeveloped infants the extra vitamins, minerals, calories and immune-enhancing properties that they need to aid their missed development in the womb.

Doctors have yet to find a discernible reason why infants get necrotizing enterocolitis. But studies show that an exclusively human milk based diet is associated with a lower rate of necrotizing enterocolitis, intestinal surgery and overall mortality than a diet that containing human and bovine milk.

“Kennedy has never had a gut issues, which is phenomenal, and she’s gaining weight tremendously,” said NICU Manager Lynne Saunders, who added that Kennedy was doing better than her weight gain goal.

Prolacta, which was recently approved by the FDA, costs between $125 and $312 per four ounce container, depending on which calorie-level the baby is on. But, none of the cost is passed on to parents at Overlake, and the average cost of surgery for necrotizing enterocolitis is around $150,000.

Kennedy’s parents never planned on bottle-feeding either of their daughters, but are grateful for the results they’re seeing on Prolacta.

“We didn’t want a formula baby, but we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do. We’ve been really blessed,” said Andrea.

Doctors are expecting that the entire family can go home for the first time in a few weeks, as long as Kennedy maintains her progress.