More than 4,300 babies are born each year at Kitchener’s Grand River Hospital. Last year, 973 of them spent time in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
A new initiative aims to support families by providing books for parents to read to their babies in the NICU, while also raising funds to upgrade it.
Called BiblioTake, it was founded by Sharan Widsten, whose firstborn child spent 11 days in the NICU, due to meconium aspiration.
“He was not a premature baby, but he was a very sick baby,” Widsten recalls. “The first few days were pretty scary, and the care that we received was incredible.”
Widsten remembers watching as nurses hooked up her baby’s tubes, changed him and repositioned him.
“I spent a lot of time feeling helpless, like I wasn’t doing anything for my baby,” she describes. “And in hindsight, I could have read to him.”
Her child is now a healthy, active eight-year-old. BiblioTake is Widsten’s effort to give back to those who helped their family through the tough early days, and support families going through a similar experience.
BiblioTake provides free books to families in the NICU, allowing parents to read to their babies and experience the childhood ritual during their stay.
“They can take one or two or three if they like and read to their baby whenever they’d like to,” Widsten says.
“When you’re reading to your child at the NICU, while it’s at the NICU, you’re still reading to your child and creating a memory with them.”
SOOTHING POWER OF READING
Brooks Patterson, a NICU nurse for 19 years, says she’s seen the benefits of a parent reading to their child while in intensive care.
“When the babies actually hear the mom or dad’s voice, it actually helps to bring down the heart rate, it helps soothe the babies, it helps to just make the babies feel more comfortable,” Patterson says.
The books can be taken home once the baby is released from hospital, and serve as a memory throughout their childhood.
“When your child is learning how to read, they can revisit it, and it will hopefully bring warm feelings of once you were in the NICU, but look at you now,” says Widsten.
For families who sadly do not get to bring their babies home, Widsten hopes a book can bring some comfort, giving parents something that belonged to their child that they can hold on to in their grief.
One book can be donated for $10, or a dozen for $100.
Widsten says the books are purchased through a Canadian book wholesaler for less than $2 each, with the additional funds going to upgrade NICU infrastructure, technology and equipment. A portion will also be used in efforts to thank NICU staff.
“We’re not accepting physical book donations because there’s lots of safety protocols,” Widsten notes. “The NICU babies are some of the most vulnerable patients in the hospital, so we have to make sure everything is as clean as possible, but also the fundraising that happens behind the scenes with the donations is key to the success of generating resources.”
Paul McIntyre Royston, the President and CEO of the Grand River Hospital Foundation, says the BiblioTake initiative will make a big difference, noting recent efforts to explore options for a new hospital in Waterloo Region, as the community grows.
“The care is incredible but we need to go from incredible care to world class care, and donors in the community and people like Sharan help make that a reality,” says Royston.
For more information and to donate, visit the BiblioTake website here.
