A retired labor and delivery nurse is turning the first floor of her home into a workshop to give families that experience the unimaginable tragedy of losing an infant a small piece of comfort. She sews tiny angel gowns from donated wedding dresses to bring dignity to a life that was too short.
A Florida mother is also putting her heart into her sewing, making blankets and gowns for babies who pass away before they can be born and are never given the chance to grow up. She works closely with multiple hospitals in the state, including Winnie Palmer and Tallahassee Memorial, ensuring that each one has enough gowns, wraps, and caps to cover every family who needs them.
She’s also able to put her own personal touches into each of the gowns and blankets she makes. She often uses lace she’s saved from her own dresses or adds buttons and trim she’s collected over the years. She recently started a new project called Sunshine State Angel Gowns and is working to provide more and more of the bereavement items to hospitals throughout the state.
It’s a mission that hits close to home for many of the seamstresses who work with her, including former Akron Children’s patient Allison Harris and her mother Susan. They each had four wedding dresses in their closets and decided to donate them to Hillary’s Cherished Gowns, a group of volunteers that sews bereavement gowns for children who die during pregnancy or shortly after birth.
Each dress can make up to 20 angel gowns, Bauer said, and her group often has a waiting list for the materials they need. She also designs patterns for other bereavement garments like sleep sacks and overalls. And she’s worked with other groups to design sewing kits that include fabric pre-cut to the exact size of an angel gown.
Those kits can help people get familiar with the process and decide if it’s something they want to commit to long-term. Bauer said that making angel gowns can be difficult, and she knows some people have trouble with the emotional aspect of it.
Mayo Clinic nurse Lynn Gaber has been sewing for a different purpose for over 30 years. She puts her heart into creating beautiful dresses that she hopes no one will ever wear, as well as gowns for the babies who are baptized or pass away while at the hospital.
She’s so committed to her mission that she even travels across the state and beyond to ensure that hospitals have a supply of angel gowns, blankets, and caps on hand for families who need them. She’s seen the impact of the tiny gowns, especially on one mother who had a miscarriage in early pregnancy and lost her baby. She had been told to go home and take a nap, but instead she sat in a hospital room with her son and husband, who held her hand, and cried for hours.