Project made possible in part through Legacy Foundation grant
Families with infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Franciscan Health Crown Point now have a variety of children’s books to read to their little ones thanks to a generous donation from the Northwest Indiana Literacy Council.
The new mobile lending library was officially donated this week by members of the Northwest Indiana Literacy Council.
Dr. Sharon Pratt, associate professor of elementary and literacy education at Indiana University Northwest and treasurer of the Northwest Indiana Literacy Council, helped spearhead the project. Pratt said she wears many hats, including as a professor, Northwest Indiana Literacy Council board member, former elementary school teacher and mom of two boys who were born prematurely. One son, she said, spent 10 days in the NICU.
“We wanted to think about a project that would help families really re-story this experience,” Pratt said. “Research shows moms go through post-partum depression at a higher rate when they have a baby in the NICU. Research also shows that reading is a way to calm families and build those family bonds.”
Pratt said reading voices are calmer and reduce heart rates, helping moms and babies bond in healthy ways.
The new mobile library was made possible in part through a $2,500 Transforming Lake County grant from the Legacy Foundation, funded by Legacy Foundation Grant Committee member Bob Spajer of Crown Point.
“Reading has been an important part of our family from the minute our boys came home from the hospital,” Spajer said. “I believe in the science behind this and the lasting effects it can provide for families and children. You can change a family’s and a kid’s trajectory forever.”
Franciscan Health Crown Point NICU Manager Jennifer Creighton, BSN, RN, said the mobile library is, “something that is really needed.”
“Just having something to do, to interact with their babies and kind of make it normal is so wonderful for them,” Creighton said. “We appreciate you doing this for us.”
Franciscan Health Crown Point and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago launched a partnership in the fall of 2022, bringing one of the nation’s top neonatology programs to the hospital’s NICU. Lurie Children’s neonatologists now staff the 20-bed Level III NICU at Franciscan Health Crown Point, caring for the most vulnerable babies and their families close to home.
More information about the Franciscan Health Family Birth Center Crown Point and the NICU are available online or by phone at (219) 757-6330.
