'Grandma Cuddler' Comforts Some Of NYC's Sickest Babies

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — Joan Hart doesn't have any children of her own, but there are plenty of babies who depend on her. They're the ones she listens for when she visits the neonatal intensive care unit at NewYork-Presbyterian's Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital — the ones who fuss or cry, signaling they need some love.

Once every week, Hart, 81, makes the trek from her Forest Hills home to the Washington Heights hospital where she's volunteered as a "cuddler" for seven years.

Her job is to comfort babies who are fighting for their lives harder than many people ever have to.

"It’s so basic, the human touch," Hart said. "I feel like I’m being hugged just as much as I’m holding them."

In 2011, Hart became the first member of Morgan Stanley's Cuddler Program, which she said now has about six volunteers. Since then she's cuddled about 1,000 babies and earned the nickname "Grandma Cuddler."

The cuddlers work in the neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU, the temporary home for newborn babies who were born prematurely or who are fighting serious illnesses.

Hart started volunteering at Morgan Stanley in 2009 after retiring from her job as a senior staff administrator at IBM, she said. She worked with different programs at first, including one that treated moms with babies in the NICU to manicures and massages.

But she wanted to do something more hands-on. "My heart really resonated in holding those little ones," she said.

Hart is often "tethered" to a baby when they're hooked up to medical machines, she said. Some are too small to cuddle. Some are isolated, meaning Hart has to wear a mask and gloves when she visits them. Some can't be touched at all.

Some just need to be patted in their crib, she said, while others need to be held for hours.

"That’s the only loving touch they get," Hart said of the babies she cuddles. "Otherwise they’re being changed, they’re being poked, blood is being taken."

Research has reportedly shown that cuddling can make premature babies healthier, less stressed and better behaved. The benefits were still evident 20 years later in a study published in 2016 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Hart said she's benefitted from cuddling, too: Her experience with the program prepared her for her great-nephew's stay in a NICU after his premature birth. "I wasn’t terrified at all the contraptions around him," she said.

The babies don't usually stay in the NICU past six months after their birth, Hart said. But that hasn't stopped her from forming some special bonds. She's kept in touch with the mom of one boy who was there for about five months and tries to meet up with them occasionally, she said.

Hart said it's bittersweet when a baby she's cuddled gets to go home. She'll likely see many more come and go, as she doesn't plan on stopping any time soon.

"I love doing it, and it never gets old," she said.

(Lead image: Joan Hart, 81, volunteers as a cuddler at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital in Washington Heights. Photos and video courtesy of NewYork-Presbyterian's HealthMatters)