The Marian Regional Medical Center’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) houses 21 infant beds, a team of medical professionals and—for 12 hours a week—a Sister of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity.
Sister Virginia Boos volunteers in the NICU as a baby cuddler, and the job is exactly what it sounds like: holding and rocking the medical center’s tiniest patients to keep them calm and happy.
“Babies need to be held and loved, and I love ’em,” Sister Boos said.
Baby cuddlers are usually assigned to the unit’s fussiest patients, so Sister Boos said she often spends time with the same babies each day. She gets to know the infants and their quirks, and said she’s watched many “miracle babies” heal and eventually go home.
Sister Boos is no novice to cuddling babies—she’s been volunteering her services for the past five years. She began at a San Jose hospital, where she worked until moving to Santa Maria about a year ago. She has since volunteered at Marian and said she’ll be at it for a long time to come.
“It’s made me a gentler person,” she said, “and I’ve become more kind.”
Marian had a full-fledged baby cuddler program at the old hospital, but Sister Boos is the first volunteer of her kind at the new facility. Before officially relaunching the cuddling program, volunteer services must work with nurses to develop orientation and training processes for incoming cuddlers, who are subject to strict protocols for sanitation and confidentiality.
Sister Boos described the ideal personality for a baby cuddler as soft, quiet, and non-intrusive when it comes to the infants’ medical care. She added: “You have to love the babies, but of course that’s not hard to do. That’s the easiest requirement to fulfill.”
Marian currently boasts a team of 524 volunteers, aiding in areas such as hospitality, nursing support, pet therapy, spiritual care, and clerical work. Anyone interested in joining the team can call 739-3520 for more information.
Staff Writer Brenna Swanston can be reached at bswanston@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 14-21, 2016.
