A DEDICATED team of knitters are helping Royal Surrey County Hospital’s midwives keep newborn babies out of special care.

They were drafted in after a number of babies were admitted to the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) as a result of becoming cold.

Midwives Claire Worthington, Jo Macleod, and Kate Rosati created the Bobble Hat Care Bundle in a bid to cut unnecessary SCBU admissions, at the Guildford hospital, which serves patients from across south west Surrey and East Hampshire.

They worked with a team of volunteers and the local girl guides to ensure every newborn is given a woolly hat to wear straight after birth.

The hats are also colour coded red, amber and green to assist the midwives in making sure the baby and new mother are best supported in the first few days of life.

Babies will receive a red hat if they have been born prematurely, amber is for those who have endured a difficult labour, and green for those deemed to be at the lowest risk.

“No baby should be going to special care because it is cold,” Jacqui Tingle, head of midwifery, said. “What parents forget is that the room could be really warm, but a newborn has no ability to maintain its own thermal regulation for the first 48 hours of its life.

“When a baby’s temperature drops it can cause other problems and this is one of the ways we are combating that.

“The hats have been invaluable in reducing our admission rate to the SCBU and we are incredibly grateful to all our knitters.”

• New mothers praised RSCH for the trust and confidence they had in staff during labour and birth, in a national survey.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) surveyed more than 20,000 women nationally who gave birth in February 2015, across the 133 NHS trusts in England.

A total of 163 patients, who received care and treatment at the Royal Surrey, took part with staff receiving an overall rating of 8.8 out of 10 for their work during labour and birth Mums also gave an 8.8 for their overall stay in maternity.

Responses to four questions ranked the trust in the top 20 per cent nationally.