Hospital treats NICU babies, parents to special Valentine's Day

(March of Dimes NICU Family Support Program)

The smallest patients at Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City received special valentines on Tuesday from their parents and family members as part of the March of Dimes NICU Family Support Program. The program, which helps families provide care for premature and critically ill newborns, also gave parents keepsake photos of their child dressed in Valentine’s Day red.

“Every day a child is in the NICU can be frightening and uncertain, but holidays are especially tough, as parents miss the normal joys of celebrations at home,” Rebecca Keunen, the program’s coordinator, said in a news release.

Volunteer photographers whose own children were once cared for by St. Luke’s NICU staff were on hand to capture the special memory. Parents wrote love letters to their newborns and also received their child’s footprints in the shape of a heart.

St. Luke’s has made similar gestures for NICU families during other holidays, including dressing babies up as Christmas gifts.