Joann Gorsline, a Mercyhealth Neonatal Intensive Care nurse, has been designing outfits for the tiniest patients for 10 years
NEED TO KNOW
- NICU nurse Joann Gorsline has been creating handmade holiday costumes for premature babies for over 10 years
- Gorsline draws inspiration from Pinterest and personal experiences to design costumes that bring joy to families
- Parents cherish the costumes as keepsakes and use them to celebrate their babies’ growth over time
A NICU nurse is spreading joy to the tiniest patients and their families.
JoAnn Gorsline, a Neonatal Intensive Care nurse at Mercyhealth’s Javon Bea Hospital–Riverside in Rockford, Illinois, has been making handmade costumes for the Illinois hospital’s smallest patients for the past 9 years. Gorsline told WIFR that she began creating the costumes after she saw different NICUs across the country doing something similar with their babies.
“I started doing it because I saw it on different social medias that there were NICUs all over the country that had costumes that they were dressing up the babies for the holidays,” she explained.
Shortly after seeing the stories of other NICUs, the nurse looked around Javon Bea Hospital-Riverside, with its 52-bed NICU, and came to the realization that they needed to do it too…