Support whilst on the units
We help provide practical and emotional support to parents and families by running regular coffee mornings where EBA representatives provide coffee, tea and biscuits and the opportunity for parents to be able to sit and talk about their experiences on the units if they wish to do so. We ensure that the parents’ kitchens are stocked up with tea, coffee, biscuits, fruit and basic grocery supplies. We supply emergency snack and travel bags for parents to take with them if their baby needs to be transferred to a different hospital by the Transport Team.
We make sure the units have a stock of wash bag kits for parents who find themselves staying overnight without anything. This ensures they have toiletry and hygiene items so they can just focus on staying close by their baby. We provide new bedding for the parent’s bedrooms on the units. We have also funded new breast pumps for expressing mum’s to use on the units and/or at Ronald McDonald House accommodation. We provide EBA cool bags to the mums on units to allow them to transport their milk from home to the hospital, along with storage tubs for pump parts. More recently, we have supplied clear pencil cases for parents mobile phones, so they can take their mobile phones into the units as these can be easily disinfected.
Creating Memories
We like to provide parents with various special ways of recording memories of their and their baby’s time on the units. Recent keepsake items we have been able to supply the units with has been milestone cards which have proved very popular. We specially designed these for parents on the units to help record and celebrate the precious and unique milestones their baby’s reach, such a first feed, first cuddle, first time wearing clothes and gaining weight.
The EBA is here to support all babies, parents and family members of babies who have been on/are on TMBU and PRH SCBU, and our hearts go out to all those who have tragically experienced the death of a baby. We provide items for the neonatal units specifically for babies who have tragically passed away. These include bereavement outfits, blankets and inkless/clay hand and foot print kits.
We are also pleased to be able to keep the units stocked up with with art and craft supplies and card making items, which allows the staff to make a precious memento from the baby to parents and other family members. These are often given on particular special occasions, for example Valentine’s Days, Mothers Day, Easter, Fathers Day, Christmas etc, and for family birthdays. These small gestures mean so much to families in hospitals on special days, and become treasured keepsakes from the baby’s time on the unit. The staff also use ink pads we provide to stamp baby’s hand/foot print and create a memory card for parents. We also provide wool for blankets and shawls, some of which are for bereaved parents so they will have a keepsake.
We also provide chocolates on Valentine’s Day for parents and staff on the units, and Easter eggs, and Christmas stockings and gifts for parents, babies and siblings on the units at these special times of year. In addition we help to celebrate World Prematurity Day on 17th November every year.
We are very happy to announce that we are now fully funding The Wishing Well Music for Health programme for musicians to play live music within the special care and high dependency nurseries at TMBU and at PRH, and this scheme seems to be a great success with very positive feedback from both parents and staff.
Creating warm and welcoming environments
In association with 1st CENTRAL Insurance in Haywards Heath who kindly have offered us a lot of charitable support, we have been able to refurbish the parents room at the SCBU in PRH, including buying new furniture and decorating the walls with bright and beautiful sunflowers in memory of one of the committee member’s little girl, Tilly. We have also been able to give the Milk Room at PRH SCBU a makeover, to make it a more relaxing environment for mum’s to express in.
We also helped with the refurbishment and redesign of TMBU in Spring 2019. We pledged £60,000 for equipment needed for the new and refurbished unit. We also funded the new dedicated TMBU Quiet Room and assisted in the redesign of this much needed space on the unit. On of our Committee Members, Jemma, was involved in the design and creating of this special room which can be used for parents needing some quiet and private space away from the ward.
We have provided 14 new Tucson clinical reclining relax chairs. Staff on the units requested these chairs to facilitate kangaroo care and breastfeeding. They are special reclining chairs with adjustable leg and arms rests, and are used in many neonatal units. We’ve had feedback parents and babies are finding them very comfortable.