Baby Naya dies after six weeks in hospital

September 14, 2011

Naya Jane Manalo, the seven-week-old Nipomo baby girl who waged an uphill battle against an ecoli infection almost from the day she was born, died Wednesday at a Los Angeles hospital.

The baby’s mother, Jamie Maraviglia-Manalo, director of marketing for the Clark Center in Arroyo Grande, posted the news on her blog Wednesday. Mother and father, Daniel Manalo, had been staying with the baby in Los Angeles for more than a month.

Baby Naya was initially diagnosed five days after birth on July 24 with sepsis, caused by an e-coli infection, and pneumonia. Kidney complications quickly followed and the baby girl was transferred initially to Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara before doctors ordered a second transfer to LA Childrens’ Hospital.

Organizers said Wednesday night that a planned fundraising BBQ for the Manalo family will continue as scheduled on Sunday, Sept. 18. The public is invited to come to the Filipponi Ranch, 1850 Calle Joaquin (behind KSBY studios), in San Luis Obispo between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.

Tickets are available at the gate for $25. All proceeds will go to help the family defray medical expenses.

Jamie used a poem by e. e. cummings to announce the death of her baby:

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

my heart) i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet) i want

no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)