L’il Aussie Prems was created by Julia Toivonen in February 2007 who is mum to two premature babies, Ronan born at 27 weeks gestation in 2006 & Tristan born at 36 weeks in 2008 at Monash Medical Centre, VIC. Through her experience of giving birth so early to Ronan, a year after his 110 day long journey Julia decided to create an online community, L’il Aussie Prems to reach out to parents and offer support and understanding whether parents are still in the NICU/SCN or at home. It has been a major learning curve creating and administrating a website but one Julia has thrived on. To date, the forum has a membership of over 1,200 members with a staggering 230,000 forum posts on support and advice from other families. The website is totally free for families to use.
Each premature baby has their own life battling experiences. Some will have a harder battle than others, and it can be a constant struggle for the families of a premature baby. Learning to live the next few months or even years at hospital waiting for their precious premature babies to grow big and strong before they can come home can be a lonely experience, let alone trying to function with other aspects of normal life. And this experience can be equally draining on other family members of a premmie parent. L’il Aussie Prems offers support not only to parents but family members as well from the comfort of their own homes.
Julia is actively involved in the premature baby community and has done so since creating L’il Aussie Prems. She was an integral committee member of Victorian charity Lifes Little Treasures until recently. The workload of L’il Aussie Prems has expanded so much that Julia needed to focus her time adminstering the site. Lifes Little Treasures and L’il Aussie Prems remain strong support partners. Julia still remains a founding committee member of the National Premmie Foundation as web administrator/public officer. On Australia Day 2008 Julia was awarded “Local Hero of the Year” through her local Council of Knox, Victoria.
L’il Aussie Prems was created by just one mum, but the websites ideas and implementations are all through the support and dedication of the members and the valuable assistance they provide. Each member has a voice which is why L’il Aussie Prems is the success it is today. Whilst Julia is one of many many parents out there offering support she is humbled to know that she is able to help other families. L’il Aussie Prems is not a registered charity but supports all premmie charities throughout Australia.
It is Julia’s hope that L’il Aussie Prems encourages everyone to share their journey and offer a message of hope and support to help parents. We hope to support you through those hard times, from the early days in hospital to the growing years.
We look forward to meeting you on the forum.
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