Bundle baby with love

CHICAGO – After stories about its pink-and-blue- striped hospital receiving blanket went viral on social media last fall, the Mundelein, Ill.-based company that supplies the covers to hospitals around the world plans to open up sales to the general public in March.

“It’s kind of taken on this life of its own,” said Tim Abate, president of textiles division for Medline Industries, where longtime employees have been tickled by the recent attention lavished on its Kuddle Up blanket, from heartfelt Facebook posts to its own Twitter handle for nostalgic parents, https://twitter.com/hashtag/ kuddleup #kuddleup.

The company plans to release its product on Amazon.com and is still finalizing details on cost and package size, said Vivika Panagiotakakos, spokeswoman for Medline.

Since the 1950s, Medline has sold the 100 percent cotton receiving blankets in bulk to hospitals, where nurses use them to wrap newborn infants or line baby beds. Although it is offered in 13 styles, the pink and blue stripe design is by far its most popular, with 1.5 million sold annually at an average of $2.50 per blanket, Panagiotakakos said.

In Mundelein, the 30 team managers responsible for overseeing textile sales, including the blankets, have for years taken quiet pride when images of celebrity babies in the blankets appeared in magazines and online.

Recently, Bill and Hillary Clinton cooed over their first grandchild wrapped in one. Commercials for “American Sniper” also pan a quick view of a baby wrapped in the striped blanket.

But when a columnist from Quartz, a global business news website, posted a piece in October tracing the blanket’s origins to the suburban Chicago business, the story went viral, prompting loving messages to Medline employees from around the world.

“We were certainly happy to see the very positive reaction that we’ve made,” said Abate, who joked that technically, the blankets are hospital property.

It’s a tradition that Becky Barnes, an OB nurse at suburban Advocate Hinsdale Hospital, has witnessed personally and professionally.

Sixteen years ago, when her son, Kyle, was born, she brought him home in a Kuddle Up blanket. The blanket ultimately became his favorite cover until he was almost preschool-age. When Barnes finally broke her son of his habit, she tucked the blanket into his baby mementos.

She saved Kuddle Up blankets used by her next two children years later.

Then in 2007, when she began working as a labor and delivery nurse, Barnes said she was amused to see parents continuing the practice.

“They’ll just kind of fold it up and put it in their bag. A lot of them do like to take it,” Barnes said. “It’s kind of vintage.”