their
baby to live in after arriving. Very often the babies cannot wear clothes the
parents have for them because of IV lines or surgical dressings. The babies
don't have much peace or comfort with all the monitors beeping and all of the
procedures and labs being done on them. Everything a parent sees in the unit
and on their precious baby is a jolting reminder that their baby is sick,
h'lthe hospital and is not just their baby, but also a patient in an intensive
situation.
It
is easy for nurses to forget these are babies. They can become
just patients when we are so busy doing procedures on them, working with their
machines. . . doing all the very technical things we do. It is also very easy
for a baby to forget that he or she is a baby when the environment is so light,
loud and jarring. When the people dealing with
them
are not the voices they know in utero, the interactions are not loving or
soothing; in fact they are often painful. The touch they feel may be therapeutic
but not loving or comforting. The smells are of antiseptic and plastic.
So
when a baby is given one of these blankets, it tells the parents someone else cares about their baby. It reminds them
that their baby is a baby, not just a patient. It gives them something sweet
and baby-like to focus on instead of heart monitors. It relieves some fear; it
gives some hope. Many parents are far away from home or have no family that
could make a precious memento for their baby like this. I've seen every parent
touched by your gifts. When they come in and see a beautiful blanket on their
baby's bed they ask right away "Who brought this to my baby?" When I
tell them, they smile, they pick it up, and they fondle and look over every
loving stitch. Then they find the tag, almost always touch it and always put
the blanket back on their baby, covering IV lines and monitor wires and
surgical dressings. Now their baby looks like a baby.
The
nurses always ooh and aah over these precious blankets as well. Perhaps because
the baby looks like a "baby" the nurses forget for a while that the
baby is a patient. I see them bend over babies and coo and talk sweetly to them
about "what. a pretty blanket you have today" or, "you look so
pretty in pink" etc. And when we do become the nurse again and have to
draw labs on that baby we are very good about talking to the baby as we fInish
and wrap their very special blanket back about them. Please understand that we
try to always treat the babies like babies and not just patients. We are not a
bunch of mean old nurses, but your blankets are such visual reminders and they
just humanize the whole environment and I feel make us better for it.
As
for the babies, they are too small to know that someone with a kind heart and
talented hand made them a present. However, they can smell and know this
blanket doesn't smell like a hospital. Sooner or later it is taken home and
washed and carried back by a parent. It is almost always in their bed so they
can constantly smell a little bit of their
parent.
A little bit of something that is not hospital, a constant bit of security and
familiarity. They can see. The patterns, the colors, give them something to
focus on, for their eyes to track. They can touch. The
2/2/2004