Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital launches no baby unhugged program

The Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital launched their new no baby unhugged program on Monday.

The program connects vulnerable babies with volunteer huggers who provide the skin to skin contact babies need while their parents can’t be with them.

“When I was in Edmonton doing my training we noticed there was a baby in N.I.C.U., very, very sick, and we see every time the mom comes and holds the baby, the baby is doing awesome so we kind of observe that,” said Dr. Sibasis Daspal, divisional head of the N.I.C.U.

“It’s not just in the vital signs, the baby grows well, they sleep better and overall we’ve seen they have a really good improvement in terms of their neurocognitive outcome. So we’ve seen a great benefit in doing these things, we always wanted to do that and now we have the opportunity thanks to Huggies.”

One of the program’s volunteers and a former neonatal nurse, Nellie Koethler, says the benefits of the program goes beyond the health of the babies too.

“When I retired in 2018 I thought, you know, I really want to continue with my babies. So I came back in January of this year and it’s been fun, it does my heart good too. I don’t have any kids I don’t have any grandkids but these are a very, very good substitute,” she said.

“Some of them are here by themselves for quite a bit of the week and just to have a tiny little bit of input into their lives is very, very precious. I may not be rich but I have time to give.”

The hospital won a $25,000 grant from Huggies to start this program in Saskatoon.

The money is being put towards the training of the volunteers, expanding the program and any miscellaneous things they might need to organize it, according to a hospital spokesperson.

JPCH is the 7th hospital in the country, and first in Saskatchewan, to be awarded this grant since the program’s inception in 2015.