Teddy Bears for Hospitals
Going to the hospital can be scary, whether you’re an adult or a child. Children especially can be caught up in these fears of the unknown: nurses in gowns and masks, big machines that look like monsters, procedures that often don’t feel very good. It’s hard for children to understand that these people and procedures are to make them better.
Teddy bears are well known for their ability to calm fears and make the unknown a little less scary. They’re able to comfort their humans and help them through difficult times.
Put the two together –hospitals and teddy bears – and what do you get? An unbeatable combination.
Meet members of Girl Scout Troop 4047 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Looking for a community project, they decided to sew hospital gowns and masks for small teddy bears for to two hospitals in Green Bay, HSHS St. Vincent Children’s Hospital and HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital Medical Center. The bears were supplied by the surgery department at St. Mary’s and given to children going through outpatient procedures. It was thought that seeing teddies dressed in gowns like the nurses and technicians would make the experience a little less scary. And it worked.
A teddy bear story should always start with a teddy bear, right? And this story is no different. It all started in 2018 when members of the Girl Scout troop visited a pediatric plastic surgeon in the area. During their visit the doctor gave the troop a large teddy bear which the girls hoped could be dressed up and given to one of the hospitals.
The teddy bear proved to be too big for the hospital to keep sterile, however, so the girls looked for other solutions. They found out that young patients in the one day surgery post anesthesia care unit were given small teddy bears as they woke up. And they had an idea – why not sew surgery gowns and masks for the teddy bears? (And it didn’t hurt that one of the troop’s dads was a medical oncologist either.)
The teddy would thus be a friend to the child who snuggled with him while he was waking up. The bear could also serve as a teaching tool for the hospitals’ Child Life Specialists who help the children cope with anxiety, normal enough given the strange procedures and the people they see wearing strange clothes.
The idea caught on. The troop leader used an actual hospital gown to develop a pattern sized to fit the small teddies. Colorful fabric was donated. Parents (and even grandparents) worked with the girls to teach them how to cut the fabric, sew the gowns, press the seams and all the other tasks involved with making a finished product. The girls rotated through the stations, learning the entire process. Perfectionists all, they kept at it until they mastered all the steps.
The project was a resounding success and has had a huge impact not only on the patients but on the girls as well. From October to November 2018 the troop made a total of 70 gowns. The gowns were then washed, air-dried and delivered to St. Mary’s where they were paired with the teddy bears for use by the post-surgical teams at both St. Mary’s and St. Vincent.
And the story doesn’t stop there, for there are plans for the troop to continue the project. The bears are always available at the hospitals. But the gowns that make the teddies extra special aren’t there to dress the bears unless the troop makes them – lovingly crafted by a group of caring Girl Scouts. It’s good news that Troop 4047 wants to keep the story alive.
(photos courtesy of Prevea Health & HSHS-Eastern WI Division)