How nonprofits are providing ‘more mornings’ for children with CF in Mexico

Sometimes a story finds you and simply won’t let go. That’s what happened when I came across More Mornings 4 Mexico on social media. This program in Mexico City for children and young adults with cystic fibrosis (CF) is producing results I found hard to believe at first. It’s not because they seemed too good to be true, but because they were achieved with something so basic: the fundamentals of CF care that many of us in the United States take for granted.

Led by Cystic Fibrosis Vests 4 Life (CFV4L) in partnership with Piper’s Angels Foundation, two CF nonprofits in the U.S., the program provided 25 pediatric CF patients at Federico Gómez Children’s Hospital in Mexico City with evidence-based therapies long considered standard of care in higher-income countries. These are not experimental or cutting-edge treatments, but rather basic CF care such as nutritional supplementation, airway clearance devices, nebulized therapies, and oxygen support.

Nine months in, the preliminary numbers are remarkable. I spoke with CFV4L President Mark Tremblay, who relayed statistics showing that hospitalizations among participating children dropped by 62%. Emergency room visits fell by 53%. Antibiotic use declined across intravenous, oral, and inhaled categories. Body mass index Z-scores, a critical nutritional marker in CF, improved by more than 200%. Lung function edged upward, and quality-of-life measures improved across both respiratory and digestive domains.

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These numbers really made an impact on me because for CF families in the United States, the therapies at the center of this program aren’t a revelation — they’re an average Tuesday. Nebulizer treatments before breakfast, airway clearance treatment after school, pancreatic enzymes with every meal: We’ve built an entire infrastructure around these interventions, and rightly so, because they work! The More Mornings 4 Mexico program is proof of what happens when children who previously lacked access to that infrastructure finally have it.

CF is a progressive genetic disease that attacks the lungs, pancreas, and digestive system. While advances in treatment, including transformative CFTR modulators, have significantly extended survival in wealthier nations, access to care varies enormously around the world. Only a very small percentage of the global CF population currently has access to highly effective modulator therapies. In many low- and middle-income countries, even the most basic interventions remain out of reach.

More Mornings 4 Mexico set out to address that gap without waiting for perfect conditions or unlimited resources. The intervention is being described as “dominant” from a health economics standpoint, meaning it simultaneously improved outcomes and lowered costs. In a healthcare landscape where those two goals so rarely align, that’s a striking finding.

A full 12-month analysis is ongoing, and organizers are candid that these are early results from a small patient cohort. But the signal is clear enough that CFV4L and Piper’s Angels are already thinking about what comes next, including expanding the model to additional clinics across Latin America and other underserved regions.

For the families at Federico Gómez Children’s Hospital, though, the impact is already real and already felt. They are experiencing fewer nights in a hospital room, more stable weight, stronger lungs, and more ordinary mornings at home.

There’s a lesson here that extends well beyond CF. Global health disparities are often framed as problems requiring massive systemic solutions — and they do, ultimately. But More Mornings 4 Mexico is a reminder that targeted, practical action matters enormously in the meantime. While the world works toward equity, children are living, breathing, and growing stronger because someone decided not to wait.

Tremblay and the teams at CFV4L and Piper’s Angels aren’t waiting. And for families at Federico Gómez Children’s Hospital, that means something profound: more mornings.

Note: Cystic Fibrosis News Today is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Cystic Fibrosis News Today or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to cystic fibrosis.