Stitches Of Love Newborns In Need Volunteers Sew Clothes And Quilts For Sick Babies

FROM FOR THE RECORD (Wednesday, October 11, 2000): Correction Firm misnamed: Claudia Holtz works at Coffman Engineers Inc. The firm was misidentified in a story about Newborns in Need that ran on the cover of Tuesday’s IN Life section.

The seamstresses smile and coo over their handiwork piled on the conference table: Square-foot quilts. Lemon-sized hats. Fleece booties that fit snug over a thumb.

Then someone lifts a crocheted dress too delicate for everyday use, and coos dissolve into quiet.

The burial gown is a reminder the clothes aren’t for dolls but for very real infants in a world where tiny is dangerous, not cute.

This is a meeting of Newborns in Need, where Inland Northwest members create clothing for premature babies who need hard-to-find sizes.

Their blankets drape incubators in local neonatal intensive-care units, where infants swim in outfits created from Cabbage Patch doll patterns. Pastel gowns lend a touch of normalcy amidst bright lights, sterile sheets and heart monitors.

For many babies, who weigh 1 to 3 pounds, this is home for months. Handmade blankets become a comfort item for parents as well as babies.

“They attach to that blanket emotionally,” says Connie Mutton, case manager for neonatal ICU at Sacred Heart Medical Center. “I don’t know what it is, but they bond. We lost a blanket once, and the mom was just in hysterics.”

Newborns in Need, a nonprofit, volunteer organization, started a chapter in the Inland Northwest a year ago. The nearly 50 members, scattered throughout North Idaho and Eastern Washington, range in age from 23 to 82. They gather once a month to sew, crochet and knit, but most work is done between meetings.

The seamstresses get in a few stitches on lunch breaks and scour fabric stores for discounted material after work.

Cindy Weidman, a Spokane woman with fibromyalgia, crochets in waiting rooms when her doctors run late. Pauline McCormick, a Shadle Wal-Mart employee, sews until the $20 worth of supplies she buys each payday are gone.

Claudia Holtz, who works in billing at Hoffman Engineers Inc., says crocheting tiny blankets is therapeutic. “I know they’re needed. I know a baby is going to be kept warm, and it is my prayer with every one that the child wears the blanket out.”

These women also know the secrets of sewing for sick babies. Gowns snap together with Velcro for quick removal in medical emergencies. Strategically placed openings make room for intravenous feeding tubes.

Physical therapists prefer quilts with silk and flannel on opposite sides to stimulate the babies’ sense of touch.

While parents grow attached to the gowns and blankets, the seamstresses try not to. They know the hospital laundry’s sterilizing products are tough on babywear.

Flannel gowns, for instance, fall apart after 10 washings.

But the women keep churning them out.

“It’s very helpful, because the hospital budget just doesn’t allow for the niceties,” says Mutton. `We have some gowns, but not to this extent.”

Sometimes, the women get help from kids with time to spare in the Spokane County Juvenile Detention Center. The seamstresses take turns teaching the young volunteers, who like to autograph their work.

Guards insist that all scissors and needles be accounted for when sessions end.

Most babies eventually go home and happily outgrow their first clothes, says Mutton. But even parents whose babies die soon after birth benefit from dressing them in soft gowns and then saving the clothes for keepsakes, she says.

Otherwise, a wristband and lock of hair are all that some take home.

Some volunteers draw the line at stitching the occasional burial gown.

“It’s difficult to make, but babies do pass away, and it’s nice to have them in a pretty thing for their journey,” says Susan Blair, the local chapter president.

Clothes are sometimes sent home with poor families who arrive with little but a baby T-shirt.

Mutton alerted Newborns in Need after Lupita Ramirez arrived at Sacred Heart in a helicopter last March. Lupita was born full-term at Holy Family Hospital, but she had spina bifida - a hole in her back and spinal column - a dislocated leg, excess fluid on her brain and other serious problems. Her parents had little money.

“I thought the world was ending for me,” says her father, 32-year-old Humberto Ramirez.

Blair and Holtz arrived with blankets and clothes that fit over the casts on Lupita’s clubfeet. They helped the family find a suitable apartment, a baby crib and work for Humberto.

The women know they can’t begin to solve all Lupita’s problems. She may never walk and is facing her fourth surgery.

But they’ve given her a more comfortable start.

Several times a day, Beatriz Ramirez sits her wide-eyed daughter on the living room floor for physical therapy. She grasps Lupita’s arms, then slowly leans her back to strengthen her weak neck muscles.

Beneath her head, a blue and white, hand-stitched blanket cushions her landing.