Crafting Care: A Handmade Project Brings Comfort, Safety and Sensory Support to Young Patients
Hospitalized babies and children often rely on medical tubes and cords that are essential to their care, yet difficult for small hands to ignore. To keep young patients safe, restraints may sometimes be necessary, adding to an already stressful time.
At UF Health Shands, Susan Lukens, PT, director of outpatient rehabilitation services, saw an opportunity to improve that experience for these young patients. Her motivation was personal.
Years ago, her son Jack was born with underdeveloped lungs and spent time in a neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU. This experience inspired Susan to explore ways to support other families facing similar challenges, leading her to a new project: “squid lovies.”
Susan enlisted her mother, Sandra Vlcek, and her friend, Phyllis Lotzkar, to crochet squid lovies designed specifically for babies and children wearing tubes or cords. Now more than three years later, they continue the work with care and dedication, producing about four squid lovies each week — totaling more than 200 each year.
“The head of the octopus lies on the baby’s chest, and they hold onto the tentacles,” Sandra explained. “It helps keep them from grabbing tubes or cords, so they don’t need to be restrained.”
Creating each squid is a labor of love. Sandra crochets and stuffs the squid heads, while Phyllis carefully creates the eight tentacles. It takes about an hour to crochet and stuff the head with fluff and an additional two to three hours to make the tentacles. Once completed, Susan delivers the lovies to the hospital, where they are sterilized before being given to patients.
The squid lovies are used in the UF Health Shands Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. According to physical therapist Jessica Cornman, PT, the lovies serve several important therapeutic purposes. They help reduce the need for restraints by giving children something safe to hold onto while keeping their hands occupied and away from medical tubing. In addition, the squids are used to optimize hand positioning in babies with tight hands, to support overall positioning and to provide sensory input for critically ill children.
Sandra and Phyllis live near each other, and their housing community supports their efforts by providing the supplies needed to make squid lovies. Through patience, teamwork and compassion, these women have turned yarn into comfort — offering hospitalized children a small sense of security during some of their most vulnerable days.