By OSEYE T. BOYD
oboyd@muncie.gannett.com
MUNCIE — Kay Stickle is in high demand. Her friends anxiously await her arrival at Ball Memorial Hospital’s newborn/neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
The babies know Stickle will come armed with plenty of love and affection. Often, Stickle hears the the cries before she walks through the door of the NICU.
“I will say to the nurse, ‘My friend is calling my name,’” Stickle jokes of her popularity among the infants.
But the care Stickle provides is no joke. A member of the Cuddler program, she volunteers to hold babies — preemies or babies born addicted to alcohol or drugs (including prescription) — once a week for four hours. The babies, often left in the hospital for weeks after their mother has been discharged, need socialization, warmth and comforting as they go through withdrawal.
“These ladies come in here and spend hours with these withdrawing babies, and will hold and console them, rock them and swaddle them,” Ball Memorial Hospital Medical Director Donna Wilkins said. “They’re less irritable. They cry less when they’re held by the cuddlers or talked to or sung to. Their whole demeanor just calms down.”
The babies usually spend about a month in NICU, but can stay as long as six weeks, Wilkins said.
“I think it helps them (the babies) tremendously, just having that social interaction when parents can’t be here,” Nurse Manager Donna Wilcox said. “I think the hardest day for a mom is realizing she has to go without her baby. There’s nothing worse than when they’re walking in and their baby’s been crying, and they don’t feel like anyone’s paying attention. Having extra hands helps.”
Imagine three drug- or alcohol-addicted babies crying at once. It’s happened before, Wilkins said. Having someone hold the babies makes life easier on the NICU nurses — and the other babies. Nurses can get their work done and other babies can sleep peacefully. The cuddlers are like an “extra set of hands” to nurses, helping with changing, folding diapers or any number of tasks that need to be done.
Before they can begin, cuddlers are trained by a retired nurse. The volunteers also are screened through Voluntary Services.
A cuddler for more than three years, Stickle spends her free time thinking about the babies for whom she cares. She makes booties and hats for babies in the NICU. She also makes sure she’s healthy, as the slightest sniffle or cough could mean she can’t volunteer. It’s happened to Stickle just once, and it broke her heart that she couldn’t go the hospital that day, she said.
Attachment to the babies is probably the only negative to the program. It’s hard to see the babies go, Stickle said.
“I say a lot of prayers that the children will be protected, and they will have a good development and people realize what kind of gift they have,” she said.
— Contact news reporter Oseye T. Boyd at 213-5830.

Volunteer Kay Stickle rocks premature twins Lila (left) and Mary Jane Lopez. (Kurt Hostetler/ The Star Press)