Local NICU needs isolette covers, urges community to help

(COLORADO SPRINGS) — The Children’s Hospital in Colorado Springs is calling out to members of the community to help the tiniest humans continue their care.

The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the local Colorado Children’s Hospital serves the smallest and sometimes sickest patients, these children are currently in need of 25 isolette covers for their neuroprotective care.

The isolette covers provide neuroprotective and developmental benefits like:

• When babies are in the womb, they experience a buffered environment with muffled sounds and dim lighting. Isolette covers recreate this environment and shield infants from medical equipment’s beep and noise, promoting brain maturation and aiding overall sensory development.
• The covers help dampen sounds and reduce light exposure, which is critical for the development of preterm infants’ sight and hearing.

“This protective measure is integral for NICU babies’ growth and health, offering a semblance of the natural conditions they would have if they were still in utero,” said Erin Havrilla, MSN, RN, NE-BC, clinical nurse manager of the NICU.

The NICU only has a few of these covers that are originals from when the hospital opened five years ago in 2019. “We need significantly more to provide consistent care for every baby,” said the Children’s Hospital.

Due to this, the hospital is asking the community to donate funds or create these covers by following the pattern below.

Each cover costs approximately $250. Those who would like to make monetary donations can do so online .

Those who’d like to try and make the isolette cover can follow the pattern above. The ideal isolette cover is double-layered, thick, and sound/light dampening with a dark inner layer and an outer layer that can feature baby patterns, baby colors, or even sports team designs.

For more information, call (719)-305-7042 or email cosdonations@childrenscolorado.org.

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