The Kangaroo Flat Uniting Church Craft Group have knitted up a storm creating beautiful handmade beanies for our newborn babies.

About 300 beanies and other knitted clothing items, blankets and isolette covers have recently been donated to the Birthing Suite and Neonatal Unit (NNU) at Northern Hospital to keep newborn babies warm after birth.

The craft group has been donating baby beanies and isolette covers to Northern Health for more than eight years. Pamela Doherty, Acting Nurse Unit Manager (NUM) Birthing Suite, said the craft group go out of their way to ensure the beanies arrive at the hospital.

“My mother used to live in Bendigo, so the craft group leader would drop items at her house for me to collect. Now that my ties with Bendigo have finished, I thought that would be too hard to retrieve items,” Pamela sad.

“But this was not the case! Lois Bell, the craft leader, organised for a drop off at my brothers house in Geelong. They really have gone to extraordinary lengths to support our newborns and they are fabulous knitters and sewers.”

The beanies are knitted to perfection – they have to be a certain size and cannot have bows on them.

“When babies are born, they drop their temperatures very quickly – they can lose a lot of heat from their head, so having a beanie can help,” said Pamela.

“Especially if premature or underweight, if babies get cold, they get low sugar levels so all their energy is used up staying warm and they require more oxygen – so it doesn’t seem much with a beanie, but simple things make a difference. They are not just to make the babies look good, they are really effective!”

“All of these beanies are beautifully knitted or sewn and are in a beautiful array of colours and patterns.”

Featured image: Newborn baby wearing a beanie made by the Kangaroo Flat Uniting Church Craft Group.