Meet Naitalie!  She and her brother Nait are traveling around the world meeting families affected by the disease that they are named after, Neonatal Alloimmune Thrombocytopenia.  NAIT is a blood disorder caused by an incompatibility between the mother’s and the baby’s platelet types.  Platelets are the body‘s main clotting mechanism.  The incompatibility causes the unborn baby and mother to not be able to exist together.  The mother’s body creates antibodies that pass on to the baby.  These antibodies destroy the baby’s platelets causing the possibility of babies bleeding in their brains, abdomen and spinal cord prior to or shortly after birth.  This disease can produce life altering effects on the baby and can be fatal.  This disease has also produced many miracles:  babies and children that have overcome and defeated challenges and diagnoses along with those children still fighting effects of NAIT. These miracles, fighters and survivors are who the bears are meeting in their journeys.  Nait and Naitalie are not just named after the disease but also in honor of the victims and survivors.  
 
 Not only will Naitalie meet families affected by Neonatal Alloimmune Thrombocytopenia but she will also have the opportunity to inform others about the disease.  She is excited to tell the world about the prevalence, screening and treatment for this disease.  She is on a quest to gain attention from media to project awareness. 
 
 Naitalie yearns to meet these remarkable families that have had their lives changed indefinitely.  She wants to be hugged by these tiny fighters.  She hopes to join them in fun and in their struggles.  Maybe she will wrestle a crocodile in Australia, chase a moose in Canada, ride a horse in Kentucky or see a Broadway play in New York.  Follow Naitalie and her brother Nait on their adventures across the globe at www.naitbabies.org. Naitalie’s journey starts in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.