Local teen donates to families coping with infant loss
Dealing with the loss of a newborn is hard. One local teenager wants to help grieving families.
It started as a school project for 13-year-old Krystal Erickson, an 8th grader at Rigby Middle School.
“The project was about how we can help the community by helping ourselves. And I love babies, I love my nieces and nephews, I love everything and I always wanted to be a nurse because my mom’s a nurse and I was like, what better to do than to put them together,” says Erickson.
She wanted to help mothers coping with the loss of an infant.
“I got donations like memory boxes to make it easier for the moms and to make it easier to go home to have something to remember their babies because they don’t get to take a baby home.”
And she didn’t stop there.
“I made 27 little blankets for them to wrap up and take pictures and their moms can take it home, and then I got a lot of clay donations because one thing the hospital does is put the baby’s footprints in it so the moms can take it home.”
The doctors and nurses in Mountain View Hospital’s Labor and Delivery department are thankful.
“In fact I got tears in my eyes when she first came to the hospital because she had crates of items that they were donating and they did have a casket that they donated as well which is really hard to come by and the fact that we were able to provide a casket for a baby that had passed away was really really important to that family,” says Dana Meacham, Manager for Labor and Delivery.
Meacham says it’s important for the healing process.
“If they have some tangible things like a foot mold or a memory box where they can open it up and look at the footprints and the bands the baby wore in the hospital, it really does help with the grieving process.”
Erickson says she’s thankful for everyone that donated.
List of donors:
Dr. Allen Salem Parkwest Dental Care Eagle Rock Dental Care Mooso Orthodontics Elersell Funeral Homes
If you would like to donate, Mountain View Hospital says they are in need of small caskets, blankets and clothes for these babies.
