Linda Davenport Miller stands outside the Children's Hospital Colorado after delivering more than 20 isolette covers she made to donate to the NICU on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024 (Stephen Swofford, Denver Gazette)
A Texas woman with Pikes Peak-area ties has answered Children's Hospital Colorado's request for help making the first weeks of life easier for some of their littlest patients, and hopes others will do the same.
In August, the Colorado Springs hospital's neonatal intensive-care unit, or NICU, asked the public to donate to protect premature babies from too much light and sound before they're ready.
An isolette is an enclosed crib that helps provide a warm and germ-free environment for premature babies, commonly known as an incubator. A baby that is born weeks or months before full gestation will function better in a dark, quiet environment that simulates the conditions inside the womb. A NICU, when it's full of the hospital's tiniest -- and sometimes sickest -- patients, is the exact opposite of that.
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The isolette cover damps light and sound to help mimic the environment inside a mother's womb while the baby's senses are still developing, according to clinical nurse manager Erin Havrilla.
"It's important to try to provide everything they would be experiencing in Mom's tummy, to the extent that we can," Havrilla said in August. "That includes sound and light dampening."
When Linda Davenport Miller read a Gazette article about the need for the covers, she saw a need that she was singularly qualified to help with.
"I saw that there was a need, and this was something I could do," said Miller, who holds a Bachelor of Science in clothing and textiles. "I've been sewing and making patterns forever, so I thought, 'Let's do this.'"
"She tried to find out if anyone out here was making the covers," said Bob Carroll, Miller's husband. "It didn't sound like anyone was, so she started making them."
After searching everywhere she could for the right materials and patterns, including fabric shops, hobby stores, and the Internet, Miller got to work.
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"She was only planning to make a couple," Carroll said. "Next thing she knew, she's made 21 of them."
Miller and Carroll, who live in Texas but have a condo in Manitou Springs, brought the covers with them to donate to the hospital.
Despite its appearance, an isolette cover is not a blanket, and according to Havrilla, making one is "a little more complicated than sewing a blanket or a T-shirt."
The ideal cover, she said, would have a dark inner layer to dampen ambient sounds, and a quilted outer layer, preferably decorated.
According to Miller, it takes about four hours to create a single cover. The collection she and her husband brought to Colorado from their Texas home represents nearly 100 hours of work.
"I have the experience, and I have the time, so I thought, 'Why not?'" she said.
Miller, who plans to make a few more covers with the remaining materials she has, said she hopes other people will follow her example and make a few covers for the little ones at Children's Hospital Colorado.
"They don't have to make a bunch, like I did," she said. "Just one or two will make a difference."
"We could call it the Isolette Cover Challenge," Carroll said.
Community members who would like to help can contact the hospital's Association of Volunteers at 719-305-7042 or cosdonations@childrenscolorado.org.
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