Care Wear Helps Welcome Preemies into the World
Care Wear gives the tiniest newborns a "head" start with knitted caps made just for them.
Have you ever tried knitting a hat for a head the size of a lime? That's one of the challenges faced daily by Care Wear volunteers, who create snug caps for premature babies to wear during their first few weeks of life.
In addition to warming them and reducing stress on their fragile circulatory systems, the adorable Care Wear caps soften the sterile hospital environment where these babies have to live, and bring psychological comfort to worried parents.
PRECIOUS DARLINGS
Through no fault of their own, many babies are born terribly premature. Some are too tiny to make it on their own, and have to depend on a tangle of monitors, ventilators and tubes to survive.
Sadly, survival is never guaranteed. So doctors, nurses, and parents -- all the people who love these babies -- welcome anything that can help the residents of neonatal intensive care units.
In 1991, Bonnie Hagerman read a magazine article about volunteers making hats and gowns for preemies at a local hospital. She immediately knew she'd found a good way to put her knitting expertise to use. After doing a little research, Bonnie offered her services to Children's National Medical Center in nearby Washington, D.C.
After a few false starts -- she couldn't make the hats small enough -- she got it right. Her preemie items were such a big hit that she had to recruit other local knitters for the charity she was now calling Care Wear.
KNITTED LOVE
Care Wear really hit the big time after receiving attention from several newspapers, including the Washington Post. A few years later, Family Circle magazine also featured the charity. The response was so favorable that Bonnie was overwhelmed with tiny hats, booties, and mittens.
Nowadays Bonnie asks Car Wear volunteers to send their knitted items directly to local hospitals. She's stopped counting how many items those volunteers have donated over the years, but as of a decade ago it was about 28,000.
BIG LOVE FOR TINY TOTS
Care to try your hand at a teeny preemie hat? How about mittens or booties? Care Wear can use all these, and more. You can get all the info you need, including various patterns, at their website.
The preemie jester cap pattern is especially adorable.
Care Wear's website also includes a database of hospitals accepting preemie items. Before you send them a hat, make sure they're not overwhelmed with them. They may need blankets, booties, or mittens more.
Knit your items from yarns made of soft acrylic, cotton or cotton/acrylic blends that can be easily washed and won't irritate baby's skin. Be sure to ask the hospital if you can attach trims, pompoms, ribbons, and the like. Some prefer that you don't.
Don't put powders or fragrances on your Care Wear items; they should especially be free of cigarette smoke odors. Deliver them in plastic bags to keep them safe and clean.
Whatever you do, be sure to make your preemie items durable. Parents of preemies often keep their Care Wear items as keepsakes, in remembrance of a time when their healthy youngsters weren't so healthy.
