Thursday, November 6, 2008

calling all sewing machines and hearts for Haitian babies.......

When I read about this Haiti project it immediately made me think of our kids'multi-church youth group's (K-LIFE for anyone familiar with that program and KANAKKUK KAMPS, or Joe White) current Haiti project , but my thoughts got bigger on me almost immediately as well!!
I got this from a fellow-adoptive mom this morning and it set me in high gear!
It is a group that is putting together safe birthing kits for moms in Haiti.
FROM THEIR WEB SITE:
"These kits - consisting of plastic sheeting, hand sanitizer, a sterile piece of string and razor blade, and these newborn baby caps - have the potential to reduce infant and maternal mortality, and give babies a safer, healthier start."

Cool, huh? There is a pattern ( A VERY SIMPLE PATTERN!!!) for the caps on the website http://www.soulemama.com/mama_to_mama/2008/11/the-caps-to-cap.html
and they can be made from t-shirt material. The newborn caps are about as simple of a sewing project as can be, and for those of us who know anything about prenatal care and birth, we understand that safe clean birth is absolutely critical to a good start in life. A cap to help keep the new born baby's head warm also keeps his /her body temperature "in" and reduces the likelihood of the baby getting "cold stressed" and going into respiratory distress. That can be life threatening for some babies and deadly for those already compromised.
What I shared with all my local contact groups is this:
If anyone is interested in making any of these newborn caps, I'd be happy to coordinate getting them from whomever sews them and then mailing the box off to Maine by the deadline of December 10.
I'm not practicing midwifery these days but prenatal care and safe births are still so dear to my heart, this really touched me. I hope that some of you will want to join in ! Please let me know if you're interested?
THANKS
Linda

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Ok, I'm embarassed to admit but we don't even own a sewing machine.

I would love to help though - tell me how!

Love you!
Jill

whenpigsfly said...

awwwwwww.................
maybe you could do everything UP to the sewing part, and share the project with someone else? Just off the top of my head.
Actually we are having to "tweak" the pattern a bit, I could not get those caps to tie into a knot at the top like the instructions say to do..... maybe our t-shirts are too heavy weight to comply?