Grace Bible Church, under the leadership of Bishop Mosa Sono, has donated 70 “lazy boy” recliner chairs to the neonatal unit at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.
The donation was conceptualised as part of 40th anniversary celebrations legacy projects of the mega-church, which has its headquarters in Pimville, Soweto and branches in various parts of the country. The other project included the painting at Isaacson Primary School.
The chairs were donated to the newborn babies unit, the section of the hospital that takes care of sick babies from birth until they are discharged, and is headed by Professor Sthembiso Velaphi.
Velaphi and his team expressed that these recliner chairs will help mothers of hospitalised newborns to stay on the bedside with their babies while they are on ventilators either at the hospital’s high care unit, ICU or Kangaroo Mother Care section.
These chairs will help mothers to be able to sit next to their babies for as long as they want and participate in the recovery of their babies.
In addition, they will no longer need to go home if they want to stay and this will save a lot of taxi fare for them as they can sit, recline or even sleep on the same chair.
The chairs will allow for kangaroo mother care to be implemented throughout all of the unit.
Kangaroo mother care is the natural way of nursing sick babies back to health and allows the mother to put the baby on her chest skin to skin for better regulation of the temperature of the baby in a natural manner as opposed to adjustment of temperatures on the incubator.
The baby on the chest stimulates breast milk production and better flow, and infections to the baby will be reduced as he or she will spend most of its time in the hands of its mother rather than being handled by many health care workers.
The mother bonds better with the baby each time the baby is on the chest and the chances of her abandoning the child is reduced.