Words by Smiley Team
Finding out that your baby, either sick or born prematurely, has to spend time in the NICU can be incredibly stressful and heartwrenching, especially after long labor and birth. Being separated from your baby so quickly can be traumatizing.
18-year-old Bryn Hammock is trying to help alleviate that pain.
Bryn heard that parents were limited to two hours a day in the NICU during the pandemic. She also heard through her grandmother, a pediatric nurse, that some NICU babies are given hand-shaped pillows of sorts to mimic a parent holding their baby. So she decided that she wanted to help and make her own.
“I heard they were alone in the hospital, and I was like ‘Wow, they really need this,’” the Hammock told People.
She was a Girl Scout since she was in kindergarten, and looking for inspiration to earn the organization’s highest award, the Gold Award, she decided to try and help the NICU babies.
With help from her grandmother, teaching her how to sew, she decided to put together the hands that she heard about. She decided to call hers “Tiny Hugs.”
After a team of volunteers joined Bryn, they ended up sewing 140, much higher than their original mark of 30.
Bryn isn’t the only person inspired by the situation families find themselves in with babies in the NICU.
Dr. Yamile Jackson, CEO, and president of Nurtured by Design, had a son who was born prematurely. In order to help him, she slept with a stuffed glove so it would retain her scent and left it in the NICU with him. This would eventually transform into the Zaky, an invention intended to help alleviate some of the stress families and babies may face in that situation.
“I started Nurtured by Design, on behalf of Zachary, and we are the only company that ‘have been there,’ and applies ergonomics, technology, safety, and risk management to research and develop devices that empower babies and parents to thrive like we did,” their website says.
FIND OUT MORE: Girl Scouts is a nonprofit youth organization in the US working together to build a better world. Find out more.
DONATE: March of Dimes leads the fight for the health of all moms and babies. Support them now.
