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Thursday, July 20, 2006

something from the CGOA

At the keynote speech for the CGOA conference, Rita Weiss mentioned a new iniative that Warm-up America has started. It is crocheting (or knitting) caps for newborns in foreign lands. Apparently, these babies are very small and would wear a cap the size of a preemie cap. There's a whole package involved with it. They suggest a letter to President Bush regarding the situation of newborns.
here's the link:

At the risk of sounding heartless and wicked, I'm not sure how caps will keep the babies from infection or diarrhea. Yes, it will keep the babies warm, but there's a lot of other problems that also have to be overcome. Even in the USA, with a lot of expensive technology, preemie sized babies have a difficult time making it. Lots of the babies will continue to have problems thru out their entire lives - even with all that technology and medicine can do. I agree to giving the hats in principle, but I don't think that's all that should or could be done. One problem is lack of surgical knives to cut the umbilical cord. You can see that having a contaminated surgical knife would cause massive problems for the babies.

I don't have any alternatives to suggest, I wish I did. And I'm not saying everybody should or shouldn't do it. (The link gives you the patterns you should use for the caps.) I'm just saying this problem is a bit more complicated then crocheting hats. If I find or figure out anything a little different on this subject, I'll post it. Hopefully there's a group out there addressing the other needs.






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