The Patriots will have some tiny fans cheering them on this weekend: newborns in the Level II Special Care Nursery at South Shore Hospital.
WEYMOUTH — Newborns in the Level 2 special-care nursery at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth are set to cheer on the New England Patriots this weekend after being decked out in Super Bowl outfits by nurses.
“We decided that we would rally everybody up with the littlest Patriots fans,” said Mallory Decas, a registered nurse in the unit.
Decas and the other nurse in the nursery, Kiley Moran, dressed their patients in Patriots- and football-themed outfits and had a photo shoot on a football-field backdrop. The infants wore Patriots onesies, tiny cheerleader outfits and even a knitted pull-up made to look like a football. Each one was given a tiny hat custom-made for them out of Patriots-themed fabric by Moran and her mother.
Decas said she got the idea to make hats for the 16 babies in the unit after her mother mentioned that she could whip up a hat in just a few minutes. She took the measurements for each little patient last week, and together the two women sewed a hat to fit each patient.
“It took us maybe three hours to get them all done,” Decas said.
Some parents brought in clothes to use for the photo shoot. For others, a nurse’s mother-in-law drove to the closest Build-A-Bear Workshop to get costumes.
“I think she bought out their entire stock of football and cheerleading outfits,” Decas said. Even the Build-a-Bear clothes were too big for some of the smallest patients, she said.
Moran said most of the infants in the nursery were born prematurely by weeks or even months, meaning they may have to stay in the hospital for months as they grow bigger and stronger.
“They spend a lot of time with us, and it’s not maybe what parents expected with their newborn babies, so we do little things like this to create a sense of normalcy,” she said. “It means a lot to the parents.”
Moran said the nurses take a patient-focused approach.
“We work with a really great group of people,” she said. “Everyone was so cooperative and so excited about doing this for the babies.”
Moran said most of the infants slept through their entire photo shoot. Some of them, though, reacted to their new duds by raising their arms over their heads as if they were celebrating a touchdown.