Women's sewing helps St. Alexius patients heal
A group of women working behind the scenes at St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates create handmade items for nearly every unit in the hospital. They call themselves the Silver Threads and they have been meeting once a month at the hospital for more than 25 years.
The group's nearly 40 members come from Hoffman Estates, Schaumburg, Roselle, Elk Grove Village, Streamwood and West Dundee. They work on their items at home and bring in their work to their monthly meetings at the hospital.
Their initial goal still drives them: to provide keepsakes and comfort to women who lose an infant from miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death. But over the years, hospital officials have tapped the group to create handmade items for pediatric and adult patients, even while they continue to rally around families who suffer perinatal loss.
"We do what we can to ease their pain," says Rosemary Colbert of Schaumburg, who has been sewing for the last 10 years.
The group's handiwork includes gowns small enough to dress these tiny infants, as well as a white pall, or cloth, to cover a container with their remains.
"Especially with some of our infant or stillborn losses, families are trying to grasp at different mementos of their babies," says Katie Hammerberg, child life specialist. "These women provide ways for these families to build memories."
At their meeting last week, members arrived with their homemade items in hand to present to Hammerberg.
They ranged from blankets, caps and bibs for infants, to pillows for children to apply pressure on an abdominal incision, as well as "Katie gowns," made to fit toddlers in the pediatric intensive care unit, and crocheted IV sleeves.
Colbert's specialty is making surgical dolls that help youngsters understand an upcoming operation. She not only makes the dolls themselves, but she outfits them in surgical masks and gowns.
"It's just something to ease their fears," says Colbert, who grew up sewing and altering her own clothes. A veteran volunteer in Schaumburg, she says she knew she could contribute to this unique group of hospital volunteers.
In recent years, hospital officials have asked the ladies to help fill their "comfort carts" for adults. Patients may choose from comfort shawls, afghans, stress balls, walker bags, neck rolls and compression pillows.
"It's something personal, handmade," says Marianne Nyberg, volunteer coordinator, "that eases the fear and softens their stay in the hospital."
Hammerberg explains that the Silver Threads grew out of the hospital's former volunteer group, Golden Circle.
"It was about the time when the medical community was encouraging parents that had lost an infant to hold the baby, take photos and name the baby," Hammerberg says. "This group originally formed to offer some kind of recognition and dignity to these infants, and they still like to make things for these families and sick children."
But hospital officials now recognize the impact their homespun efforts can have on other groups of patients as well.
"With all the love and everything they put into creating these items," Nyberg says, "they make hundreds of patients happy. When they (patients) leave, they know that someone was thinking of them."