*** Trigger Warning - this post contains images of beautiful little premature infants in hospital *******
The Royal Hospital has an average of 10,000 births a year and approximately 1500 admissions to the NICU. Khoula Hospital has on average 7000 births a year with approximately 1300 admissions to the NICU. These figures were mind-boggling when I heard them.
There is not a lot of general public knowledge about Premature Babies in Oman and the hospitals are getting together next month to showcase their teams and provide information on World Prematurity Day - November 17th! We will have volunteers from YKAM at the Grand Mall showing others what we are making in a hope to raise awareness and encourage more volunteers.
Babies in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) are there for a variety of reasons from being born premature, failure to thrive, or heart / medical conditions, simply put they are in need of 24 hour intensive care. The beanies we are making have two obvious and immediate purposes ... to keep the body warm and to keep the sound out. Many of the tiny preemies (premature is defined as babies born from 24 - 37 weeks) are on CPAP machines and do not require beanies as they are in an incubator and wear a cap that has slits and holes for all the tubes etc.
Generally our beanies will be for babies above 1.5kg. The average weight of babies born full-term in these two hospitals is 2.5 - 3kg.
This not so little fella is my son Sami in the MPH NICU back in 2007. It is very hard to put into words what is like to give birth and not be able to hold your baby. It is a rollercoaster of emotions. Imagine knowing that someone out there cared enough to knit your little one a beanie to give them comfort while they were way from the warmth of their mumma ... priceless.
After extensive reading and research and meeting with hands-on NICU Dr's and nurses we have devised patterns to suit their needs and sourced locally available soft yarns that are perfect for often underdeveloped and sensitive babies. It is for that reason that we will be VERY STRICT on these standards. Volunteers that wish to use up existing yarn from their "stash" or purchase other yarns are very welcome to make larger beanies for older children and adults and also participate in our blanket making drive.
We require a minimum 200 beanies per month to meet the needs of these two hospitals. Once we are up and running and able to produce with ease these two hospitals then we will reach out further to SQU and the Armed Forces Hospitals who both have NICU's.
After the beanies are in ample supply we will move on to also making booties, Preemie Octopuses, and blankets but for now our main focus is to meet the initial need for both NICU's. 
The idea behind this group is that we have a core group who are then teaching others how to loom, who then create their own groups and teach others and so on. Then once a month we will have group meeting where we will teach, loom, chat and be available to collect finished products. We will also have a convenient drop off point for those who can not make it to the monthly gathering.
Once we collect the finished the beanies they will QUALITY CHECKED , washed, sized and packed ready for the hospitals.
Thank you for taking the time to read about our project and I hope we can convince you to come and enjoy looming, friendship and paying good deeds forward as much as we do.
Further posts will follow regarding how to make the beanies.
Thanks for stopping by ...
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