Saturday, July 15, 2006
Four million babies worldwide die in the first month, many in just a day.
STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Beverly Stevens, a 67-year-old retired nurse, stays up to the wee hours of the morning knitting baby caps. She can't stop stitching, determined to save lives.
The woman, from the Columbus suburb of Dublin, is among the volunteer knitters around the country planning to send thousands of baby caps to developing countries.
The grass-roots campaign comes after a global report on newborn mortality in May found that about 4 million babies die in their first month of life, about half of those in the first 24 hours. Simple measures, such as knit caps to keep babies warm, could help save many of those lives, according to the report by Save the Children in Westport.
"It seemed like such a simple, satisfying way to help somebody else," Stevens said. "I'm touching something that's going to touch a baby, a mother who I never met."
Save the Children, working on the initiative with the Warm Up America Foundation, set a goal of enlisting 75,000 knitters. The caps will be sent to Washington, D.C., by January and then to Malawi, Bangladesh and possibly other countries, said Eileen Burke, a spokeswoman for Save the Children.
"We felt this was an incredible opportunity to connect women in the U.S. with women and babies overseas," Burke said.
Stevens has recruited some 20 volunteers alone, though she's still trying to convince her husband. She sat by frustrated over what to do when Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters struck.
"I want to do something more than send money," Stevens said. "They just give a thrill. They're so cute and little. It's like baby shoes."
Wilma Seelye, a retired teacher from Goleta, Calif., has made 13 caps since reading the report. Her grandchildren are helping to make pompoms for the hats.
"What a huge deal to save a life," Seelye said. "The world politics is so huge -- to change the causes of poverty and death, I can't do that."
Volunteers also will be asked to send personal notes with their caps to elected officials urging more funding for health programs in developing countries.