Terry Berggren, who is in his 60s, has held more than 550 babies in the neonatal intensive care unit at Overland Park Regional Medical Center in Kansas. He volunteers through the hospital’s Warm Arms program, which he joined in May 2023, and the hospital recently honored him with its 2026 Frist Humanitarian Award, according to a People story shared on Yahoo on Nov. 3.
His own family’s history with premature birth is part of why he does it. Berggren calls the work an “honor” that “never gets old.”
What a NICU Cuddler Does
Berggren is a Kansas-based data analyst, a dad and a grandfather. Each visit to the unit lasts a few hours, People reported. He holds babies whose parents cannot always be at the bedside.
The unit he volunteers in is a busy one. The hospital’s CEO, Matt Sogard, has called it Johnson County’s most advanced and busiest NICU, according to a 2025 hospital news release about its annual NICU reunion…