The loss of a child is one of the most devastating experiences a family can face. When a baby is stillborn or dies during the birthing process, some hospitals offer families an angel gown to dress their tiny one in and take a final picture of them. The gowns are made from repurposed wedding dresses and are given to grieving parents to keep and hold forever.
The gowns are created by volunteers at a nonprofit group called NICU Helping Hands, which was started by Sarah Grubbs and her mother after they lost their own son, Andrew. The organization offers the free gowns to families nationwide, and it hopes to soon expand to offer them internationally. “It’s a beautiful way to give a memory of what could have been,” says Grubbs, who lives in Texas. “These gowns give parents something that can last, so they’re not just forgotten.”
One woman who has been doing this work for decades is W.L.J. Angel Gowns of South Bay, a small group of seamstresses who wash and cut donated wedding dresses into tiny angel gowns and angel wraps for families who suffer the same heartbreak that they have. The seamstresses donate their time to make the gowns for a variety of hospitals, including Akron Children’s Hospital and University of Michigan’s Sparrow Medical Center. They also supply a number of other hospitals across the state and have even sent gowns to families who have lost babies in the United Kingdom.
Each gown is washed and pressed, then stitched together by volunteer seamstresses who work from home. They typically take a full-size dress and turn it into several smaller gowns that fit newborns to six months old. Each of the packages that are delivered to the hospitals includes a pair of socks, a blanket for the little one to be swaddled in, and a message card for the parents.
The group has received requests for the angel gowns from hospitals in Spokane, Coeur d’Alene and even as far away as Oregon, California and Minnesota. Mangiaracina has been touched by the response. One letter from a father in Puyallup read, “I am so grateful for what you do for these families and want you to know I thank you. I am so sorry that I am unable to donate, but please know how much your efforts are appreciated.”
Lynn Gaber, a Mayo Clinic nurse in the cardiovascular surgery unit, knows the need for the gowns firsthand. Last year, she picked up gowns for two unsolved local cases—Baby June and Baby Moses, who was found floating in the St. Lucie River in 1983. “These babies are just as important as any other,” she says. “We need to remember them.” Gaber’s husband, Mike, agrees. “The more we talk about them, the more healing takes place.”