Several Fashion Design students from Don College, volunteered to make Cuddle hearts for the Neonatal Critical Care unit in Hobart.

Soft fabric ‘Cuddle Hearts’, linking mum and baby, fill a gap when the two can’t be together. One fabric heart is given to the mother and placed on her chest to pick up her scent, with the other heart placed close to the baby for the same reason. The hearts are then swapped so mother and baby are left with each other’s scented heart.  

The program was introduced to improve feeding success and to help establish a connection between mother and baby through smell.

Students were happy to help and found it a great learning experience, as they discovered hearts are hard to stitch correctly! ?  The real community project touched our “hearts”.