Flowers Manor Supports Neonatal Care Unit
Our care home community is an enormous part of life at Flowers Manor, but our residents also love to contribute to the wider local community. At our wonderfully welcoming care home in Chippenham, some of our residents come together every Monday for Knit and Natter.
Knit and Natter sees residents join together every Monday to chat while they knit and they have created some fabulous knits when they meet. However, our group has decided that knitting for a cause is the way forward and so began to knit baby hats for the neonatal intensive care unit at the Royal United Hospital of Bath.
Specialised Sizes
Hats for babies born prematurely are an important part of helping to keep them warm but they often have to be knitted-to-order as they are so small. Although in residential care, our fabulous residents are only too happy to think of others and, while the neo-natal project only started last year, the group has already lovingly sent 12 little hats just this week.
Fuelled By Purpose
Our knitters have really enjoyed knitting these little hats and are looking forward to making more as we move into the Spring and Summer. Our community uses our communal areas to come together for other social events, like quizzes and sing-alongs, so they’re used to spending time together and chatting to friends.
However, our knitting group has been especially focused on completing the hats so that they could send a dispatch to the unit in Bath. Knitting is a superb way to maintain fine motor mobility and dexterity in the fingers, but most of our knitters have been knitting since their youth. The Knit and Natter sessions are a combination of contented conversation and the rhythmic click of needles as the team work away to create the tiny hats.
Working in Partnership
We’re thrilled to be working with the Royal United Hospital of Bath and we hope to get involved in more projects in the future with them.
The neonatal project brings two different sectors of our society together and helps our residents to help the very youngest, newest arrivals when they most need support and love.
The number of premature births in the UK is considerable, with around 60,000 babies born prematurely every year. That figure suggests that 1 in every 13 babies that are born in the UK are premature. Our hats help our residents to knit with purpose but they also bring a source of great comfort to the parents of the premature babies in the unit.
