For most parents, giving birth is the happiest moment of their life. But it can be a nightmare when your child is born premature. All of the joys and excitement of childbirth are caught up in your anxiety: will my child be alright, is he being looked after, am I doing everything I can to help. That's why one simple gesture - a felt cape left on their son's IV pole - meant so much to a couple from Montreal.
Michelle Campbell and Chris Korres' son Benjamin was born 2 months early, and needed 24/7 care in the Jewish General Hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
That's where Stephanie Treherne found him.
Treherne is a nurse in the NICU unit who had been working there for about a year when Benjamin was born. After seeing a photo of a baby in a superhero cape at a conference, she was inspired to do something kind and supportive for the babies in her ward.
She says all the nurses think of the babies as "little superheroes" because of how hard they fight to survive, so her handmade felt capes are meant to represent that. She tries to make one for every child in the ward, with a custom letter for their name.
It's a small gesture, but Campbell said it meant the world to her at a time that's "not so good" for anxious parents.
"It was really special for us to have gotten that," she told CTV news.
The couple said they planned to feature the cape in a special photoshoot with Benjamin. It meant even more to them than other parents, because Treherne didn't actually work with Benjamin, she just wanted to do something nice.
Other nurses have started their own similar projects. We'd love to see these become more common, because it's such a simple but heartwarming gesture.
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