Drug addiction is a prevalent problem in the US and even babies are not exempted from the drug crisis. But you can help drug addicted infants heal plus enjoy amazing health benefits at the same time.
Some hospitals are offering volunteering programs in which participants could cuddle with drug addicted babies to help them overcome the withdrawals.
Drug addicted babies tend to be more irritable than normal babies and will need more care and consolation. Cuddling with infants has its own health benefits to volunteers. Supportive touch promotes better mental and emotional connections.
You Can Volunteer To Cuddle Drug-Addicted Babies In Order To Help Them Heal
Drug addiction is the world’s most dangerous killer, and the most shocking drug addictions are the ones where babies are involved. Neonatal abstinence syndrome is a withdrawal syndrome of infants due to the exposure to drugs from the parent in utero. This horrifying is transferred to the baby from the mother – as soon as the baby is born, it experiences a withdrawal process, and the occurrence of the syndrome has increased by over 300% in recent decades!
Cuddle care volunteering programs
Some hospitals offer volunteering programs in which professionals give extra care to infants with NAS in order to help them get over it and transform their future life. This technique offers the infants comfort and security so they can live a normal life. Besides the nurses, volunteers can cuddle the babies too and give them the attention they deserve. “[Cuddling] is helping them manage through these [withdrawal] symptoms. They are very irritable; they are hard to console. This is about swaddling them and giving them that comfort and safe, secure feeling,” Maribeth McLauglin from the Magee-Women’s Hospital in Pittsburgh says.
Image courtesy of: MTSOfan
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