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Former NICU Family Gives Back Through Family Business

Release Date: 01/07/2016

Ken Rahn, pitmaster and owner of Bringeth the Meat BBQ, is headed to the grill to give back to Women & Infants Hospital, a Care New England hospital. In 2016, Ken plans to donate quarterly two percent of his business’ sales to the Women & Infants neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). “Our rationale is that we owe a debt to the NICU that we can never repay…without the NICU, neither of our children would have survived,” said Ken.

 

Ken and his wife Paige, have two children: Julia, born at 29 weeks and now a thriving six-year-old and William, born at 27 weeks, now 16 months old and hoping to grow out of a chronic lung disease in a few years caused by his prolonged intubation. Both were born prematurely due to preeclampsia, a disease of the placenta – an organ that provides food, oxygen and nutrients to the baby. Preeclampsia pregnancy occurs in six to eight percent of all pregnancies in the United States, usually during the second or third trimester, and can affect the health of the mother and her child.

 

The Rahns have been looking for ways to give back ever since they took William home. “When I started the BBQ company, it seemed like the perfect vehicle for giving back. My plan is to set aside five percent of gross sales and disburse it at the end of each quarter. Two percent will go to the Women & Infants NICU, and the other three percent would be spread out among other worthy causes,” expressed Ken.

 

About the Women & Infants Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)
Women & Infants operates one of the nation’s largest single-family room neonatal intensive care units (NICU), where the latest technology and highly skilled specialists care for babies born prematurely or sick. The NICU provides comprehensive care through the coordinated efforts of social workers, occupational therapists, nutritionists, respiratory therapists, neonatal nurses, neonatal nurse practitioners, neonatal-perinatal fellows, and attending neonatologists and pediatricians. Practitioners skilled in the care and stabilization of sick newborns are available in-house 24 hours a day. The single-family room model also encourages families to be actively involved in their baby’s care.

 

About Women & Infants Hospital 

Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, a Care New England hospital, is one of the nation’s leading specialty hospitals for women and newborns. A major teaching affiliate of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University for obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics, as well as a number of specialized programs in women’s medicine, Women & Infants is the 9th largest stand-alone obstetrical service in the country and the largest in New England with approximately 8,500 deliveries per year. A Designated Baby-Friendly® USA hospital, U.S.News & World Report 2014-15 Best Children’s Hospital in Neonatology and a 2014 Leapfrog Top Hospital, in 2009 Women & Infants opened what was at the time the country’s largest, single-family room neonatal intensive care unit.

Women & Infants and Brown offer fellowship programs in gynecologic oncology, maternal-fetal medicine, urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery, neonatal-perinatal medicine, pediatric and perinatal pathology, gynecologic pathology and cytopathology, and reproductive endocrinology and infertility. It is home to the nation’s first mother-baby perinatal psychiatric partial hospital, as well as the nation’s only fellowship program in obstetric medicine.

Women & Infants has been designated as a Breast Imaging Center of Excellence by the American College of Radiography; a Center of Excellence in Minimally Invasive Gynecology; a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence by the National Institutes of Health (NIH); and a Neonatal Resource Services Center of Excellence. It is one of the largest and most prestigious research facilities in high risk and normal obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics in the nation, and is a member of the National Cancer Institute’s Gynecologic Oncology Group and the Pelvic Floor Disorders Network.