When my infant daughter was four months old, we came to see lactation to seek help with my daughter’s growth and to understand how much she was transferring from feeds. We are a military family from Longmont that has been living in Japan for the past several years, and my daughter was born in Japan. She was not growing on-pace and had suspected food protein allergies, but we had not been able to receive much clarity on what was going on. We had been through a roller coaster of extremely stressful and at times traumatic experiences overseas trying to get adequate help and care for our baby. At one point, a military doctor suggested that my breast milk was “bad” and, therefore, was the reason my baby wasn’t growing quickly enough.

When we met with Ana, a lactation consultant at UCHealth, she was extremely compassionate, sympathetic, and kind, listening to us and our entire story. Ana very genuinely and deeply cared and I was more touched by her kindness and level of care than by any other healthcare professional I have seen regarding our daughter. She helped me realize I need to take care of myself too and that my breast milk actually has a lot of great qualities and is not “bad.” She helped me step away from a lot of the shame I have felt as a mother as my daughter has grown and gained at a slow rate. One of the things that resonated most strongly in my memory, as I was holding my daughter after feeding her, was Ana telling me that my daughter was so loved. That my baby has had an abundance of love, that we have a strong and loving connection and she is a happy baby that feels loved when she breastfeeds as well. I felt very emotional hearing this, as I simply hadn’t been hearing messages of love - or many positive messages about my baby at all - from other healthcare professionals. Ana brought an amazing level of kindness and heart to her care that made a deep impact on me. I am enormously grateful to her for the emotional support she provided me as a mother, as well as the kindness she showed my baby and her determination to help us figure out what was going on with my baby. Ana genuinely cared about helping us find a solution, and she genuinely wanted to help me and my baby. I am deeply grateful for her and the positive impact she made on my family during such an intensely stressful and emotional period of time.

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The DAISY Foundation recognizes and celebrates nurses who go above and beyond the role of nursing with compassion, respect, and knowledge. UCHealth utilizes the DAISY Award Program to recognize nurses who also align with the Mission and Values such as learning and discovery as well as human connection. Since her joining a new team, Ana has pursued learning not only the new area of nursing but also how her role impacts the lives of our patients in providing the best and most current evidence-based practice- from the sky view to each in-patient she interacts with.  Her care and compassion are evident in each and every patient encounter every day, as she brings always brings her best self and is present with the patient, in their space and listening without judgement. She has challenged her level of professional development and subsequently has leveled up her team in rising with UCHealth's mission to decrease disparities in healthcare. She supports all of our patients equally, but with her bilingual skills, she is able to reach our Spanish speakers, where she has sought out resources to serve their needs. She has engaged our staff with learning by her nonthreatening presence and allowing them to open and learn, following up with their questions and concerns, and maintaining a weekly education through our unit SWAY.  She has evaluated our community education class, and instead of just evaluating the class, she updated the class with the most current information and started teaching the class (where we have had many parents come through prepared and ready as well as excited that she would be on the unit to support them!)  She has shadowed providers in order to provide consistent messaging. She continually looks for ways to support our littlest of lives as she educates herself and her team on SUD, Substance Use Disorder. She exceeds each and every UCH value of Patients First (in each and every interaction), Integrity (doing what is right, because it is right thing to do), and Excellence (surpassing expectations of UCH and providing outstanding practice/service).  I nominate her not only as a colleague but on behalf of all the patients she has supported and provided the care we would ask for my own family.

Note: This is Ana's 2nd DAISY Award!