Kimberly Novod, a native New Orleanian and Xavier University graduate, is the founder and executive director of Saul’s Light, a nonprofit organization that supports NICU and bereaved families through comprehensive resources and compassionate care. The organization was listed as one of the 15 New Orleans Nonprofits Pioneering Community Impact by Charitycharge.com.
Now a mother of a seven-year old girl, Novod began Saul’s Light 10 years ago after the untimely death of her premature son.
Novod received a 2024 Angel Award from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Louisiana Foundation. She was also recently published, along with other authors, in “Fanaroff and Martin’s Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine” for her study on evaluating and improving neonatal intensive care.
Can you tell us more about how Saul’s Light was started?
Going through an unexpected preterm birth, the NICU journey, being hospitalized and then, ultimately, my son’s passing, was life-changing.
I knew that I wouldn’t be the same, and I wasn’t sure how I would move forward. Part of moving forward is processing, having the time to grieve and having access to mental health counseling.
It helped me to look back on my journey — to see there were spots along that journey that could’ve been better. I started to think about what I needed and what other people that I met in the NICU had needed.
I looked to my community to see that premature birth is a thing that is very prevalent in our community, and yet there weren’t any sort of organizations that were supporting families with this particular thing. I thought, “You know, I wish someone would do that,” and then I realized it would be me.
Did you have family support to help you along that process?
Yes, absolutely. I think that support became the model for the organization.
The journey is hard for everyone, but it is infinitely harder for people based on their circumstances in life — income, whether or not you have leave for your job, whether you have insurance or not, whether you speak the language of the hospital. I used the experience that my husband and I had with community, family and friends to decide that everybody needed the support I felt.
For example, my husband and I met and became friends with this couple named Samantha and Ryan. I’ll never forget their names. They could see that we were struggling, and she gave me a stack of Little Golden Books.
It wasn’t a big gift by any stretch of the imagination, but it was monumental. It changed everything for me because we went from being very anxious and crying a lot and fearing the future to having peace and normalcy.
We started reading to our son in the NICU, and we finally got to have that moment of being normal parents reading to our baby.
I thought I could use that example and pay it forward. So one of the support things that we do is have Little NICU Libraries in all of the NICUs in New Orleans.
What is your background, and how did that contribute to the foundation?
I taught high school history for 12 years.
I am sharing the same things that I shared with my students — empathy, compassion and justice — but now with families. We are working to make our community and our state better for families that are experiencing the NICU, or worse, experiencing the death of a child.
It’s full circle. I’ve had two former students that had preterm babies in the NICU who were supported by Saul’s Light. That really solidified that I’m doing the right thing.
Is there anything that people should know about the NICU if they haven’t experienced it before?
Most people don’t know about Saul’s Light until they need us. When most people think about having a baby, they’re planning the nursery, setting everything up, and they never think that anything is going to go wrong.
But the truth of the matter is, here in Louisiana, we have a lot of challenges with birth and a high prematurity rate — over 13%. Prematurity is one of the biggest reasons that babies are low in birth weight, which is a significant contributor to infant mortality.
People need to know that this is not a them problem or a thing that happens somewhere else to other people. It’s happening to our people in Louisiana. I want people to know it happens far more than you think, and the people in your community need your support.
What are the most impactful things that Saul’s Light has done?
Advocating for NICU babies and families, such as through the passage of laws like the still birth tax credit — which makes sure families who experience still birth are able to claim a tax credit in the year that the child was born.
The next legislation that we worked on was to create greater access to donor human milk for medically fragile babies.
Advocacy is probably the biggest sort of “I love you” to our state. We are working every day to learn all that we can about prematurity, infant loss, the NICU, health care, mental and maternal health.
We’re trying everything we can to make Louisiana a place where our babies are born full-term and healthy, and if anything goes wrong, parents don’t feel alone or feel they cannot return to their lives and move forward.
How is Saul’s Light funded?
Through individual donations. One of the beautiful things is that people who donate to us feel that they are part of the mission, and they are.
When we’re sending a family cash assistance or providing a specialized car seat for a preterm baby, this money comes from the people in their community — the cashier at Rouses, their barista, the guy at the oil change shop.
It’s all these people coming together, saying, “We can do it.” We take care of our own. That’s Louisiana.
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