Newsletter chitchat - February 25, 2025

[Cassel]

What do volunteers provide at your hospital?

Do they knit or crochet some specific things for patients/families?

Share those fun ideas and even better if you happen to have pictures.

[Sandy Christian-Mamie]

As a labor and delivery nurse, I work closely with NICU.  These octopi are a wonderful gift to babies and their parents. 

[Cassel]

  On 2/26/2025 at 3:51 AM, Sandy Christian-Mamie said:

As a labor and delivery nurse, I work closely with NICU.  These octopi are a wonderful gift to babies and their parents. 

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Interesting to hear that it is not something new. How long have they been using those in the NICU?

[Sandy Christian-Mamie]

It's been at least 15-20 years.  We didn't have them when I worked LDR about 35 yrs ago.

[Sandy Christian-Mamie]

Check out the highlights and patternshere - https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=nicu+and+crochet+octopus&sei=k5G-Z5PLBY6p9u8P6tWwiQg

Edited February 27 by Sandy Christian-Mamie

[Shirley]

I knit baby  hats and singlets for our local  maternity home

[Shirley]

I would love the pattern for the octopus if anyone has it. Be, a change from hats and singlets and quite popular  I would think.   

[Michele]

This has nothing to do with crafting, but several hospitals here have Baby Cuddler programs in the NICU. Volunteers comfort babies when their parents cannot be there. The babies in these programs tend to do much better.

[Sandy Christian-Mamie]

Shirley, see https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=nicu+and+crochet+octopus&sei=k5G-Z5PLBY6p9u8P6tWwiQg.

Michele,  yes, those programs are fantastic.  Many babies with birth defects are abandoned or those whose moms were addicted to cocaine are taken from the moms.  While the NICU nurses love the babies as if they were their own, they don't have time to just hold and love on them - and the skin to skin program has been proven to help babies' respirations to be less labored, for their immune systems to thrive, etc.  Most ended with Covid, but many are starting back up again.

 

[Ann Seeber]

  On 2/26/2025 at 9:24 AM, Sandy Christian-Mamie said:

Shirley, see https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=nicu+and+crochet+octopus&sei=k5G-Z5PLBY6p9u8P6tWwiQg.

Michele,  yes, those programs are fantastic.  Many babies with birth defects are abandoned or those whose moms were addicted to cocaine are taken from the moms.  While the NICU nurses love the babies as if they were their own, they don't have time to just hold and love on them - and the skin to skin program has been proven to help babies' respirations to be less labored, for their immune systems to thrive, etc.  Most ended with Covid, but many are starting back up again.

 

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My great granddaughter Sonya was in that category. She was born addicted to heroin. Until that diagnosis, the family had no idea what her mother was going through. Very sad. 😔 I did a scraplift from a quick page for this layout.

Edited February 26 by Ann Seeber

[Clarine]

  On 2/26/2025 at 11:22 AM, Ann Seeber said:

My great granddaughter Sonya was in that category. She was born addicted to heroin. Until that diagnosis, the family had no idea what her mother was going through. Very sad. 😔 I did a scraplift from a quick page for this layout.

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Your little Sonya is a dolly. 

 

[Clarine]

Many many years ago my mother-in-law made little white gowns for the preemies in a local hospital.  Some got to wear their white owns home.  Many others were sent to Heaven in their little white Angel gowns.   I always wanted to follow in my Mom-in-law's footsteps and help her sew the gowns but no time back then with 3 kids and 3 parttime jobs.  Now, she is in Heaven too.   Maybe one day I will check into it.

I love the octopus idea.  They are just too cute.  Bless all those volunteers!!!

[Sandy Christian-Mamie]

We use those gowns all the time.  The parents so appreciate them.  It is difficult enough to have to go through that experience and loss and there are few things we can say or do to help support them, but this is one of them.  I also use fabric ink and take the footprints and put them into an embroidered project that has their name, date of birth, time, length, weight, and if they were born alive, the date of death.  There are times when it just isn't possible to get footprints, so I create something with a stamp of a footprint.  One time, a family had 15 of their family members there to support the couple.  I was unable to get footprints, so I did all their handprints and made a wall hanging with the family member's names'   embroidered on the handprints and put the baby's info at the top after embroidering, "With these hands we will lift each other up while we mourn...and the baby's name."

I always ask their nursery colors are or whether hearts or butterflies mean more to them, colors, Bible verses, etc.  I try to design it with their input, so each one is different.  I only had pix of two handy that I had covered up the names for their privacy to share. 

I learned PSP to create T-shirts and art for our biz.  For those of you who use it for scrapbooking, doing layouts of their babies would be a huge gift.  It is the only pix they will ever have of their child.

Art is therapy - for those of us who do it and those who receive it.

[Ann Seeber]

  On 2/26/2025 at 11:48 PM, Clarine said:

Your little Sonya is a dolly. 

 

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Yes, she is, Clarine. Thank you. Here is a more recent layout showing how she is now thriving in the care of my daughter, Beth, who is her grandmother. 

[Cristina]

  On 2/27/2025 at 1:07 AM, Sandy Christian-Mamie said:

Art is therapy - for those of us who do it and those who receive it.

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This is so true.

Beautiful work you do, Sandy! 

[Sandy Christian-Mamie]

Thank you, Cristina!

[Clarine]

  On 2/27/2025 at 9:52 AM, Ann Seeber said:

Yes, she is, Clarine. Thank you. Here is a more recent layout showing how she is now thriving in the care of my daughter, Beth, who is her grandmother. 

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She is perfect.   Totally a living doll.  🙂  

 

[Clarine]

  On 2/27/2025 at 1:07 AM, Sandy Christian-Mamie said:

We use those gowns all the time.  The parents so appreciate them.  It is difficult enough to have to go through that experience and loss and there are few things we can say or do to help support them, but this is one of them.  I also use fabric ink and take the footprints and put them into an embroidered project that has their name, date of birth, time, length, weight, and if they were born alive, the date of death.  There are times when it just isn't possible to get footprints, so I create something with a stamp of a footprint.  One time, a family had 15 of their family members there to support the couple.  I was unable to get footprints, so I did all their handprints and made a wall hanging with the family member's names'   embroidered on the handprints and put the baby's info at the top after embroidering, "With these hands we will lift each other up while we mourn...and the baby's name."

I always ask their nursery colors are or whether hearts or butterflies mean more to them, colors, Bible verses, etc.  I try to design it with their input, so each one is different.  I only had pix of two handy that I had covered up the names for their privacy to share. 

I learned PSP to create T-shirts and art for our biz.  For those of you who use it for scrapbooking, doing layouts of their babies would be a huge gift.  It is the only pix they will ever have of their child.

Art is therapy - for those of us who do it and those who receive it.

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Beautiful!!!   And so appreciated by those families.   Thank you for doing such loving work.

[Michele]

  On 2/26/2025 at 9:12 AM, Michele said:

This has nothing to do with crafting, but several hospitals here have Baby Cuddler programs in the NICU. Volunteers comfort babies when their parents cannot be there. The babies in these programs tend to do much better.

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This popped up in my FB Memories. 
https://www.facebook.com/AppreciateENG/videos/1792963007670170