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News"
Premature
babies at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center respond positively
to the chords of volunteer harpist.
By Molly Shore, The Leader
MEDIA DISTRICT WEST - Patti Hood's harp music is so soothing
that when she plays, babies stop crying.
Since November, Hood has plucked her 1926 Lyon & Healy harp
for infants in the neonatal intensive care unit at Providence
St. Joseph Medical Center.
"It's a form of therapy, and although I don't call myself
a therapist
because I don't have a degree, I've seen what it does, and it
works," Hood
said.
Hood, who volunteers at the hospital, plays a variety of songs,
several of
which she wrote herself.
"They're sort of like a new-age style with kind of a Celtic
flavor," she
said. "And then I do some traditional Irish folk songs."
Jeanne Cole, a care unit nurse manager, said some medical studies
show that
music has beneficial effects for premature infants.
"The studies indicated that the babies just seem to relax
a little bit
more," Cole said. "Sometimes their oxygen requirements
have gone down a
little bit more during that time."
The music is also beneficial to the families, Cole added, especially
for
those families who can take their babies out of their Isolettes
- baby-sized
incubators - and hold them.
"It's a nice, quiet time for parents and their babies,"
she said.
Hood always ends her one-hour performance with "Amazing
Grace."
"It's something I need to do within myself," Hood
said. "I believe it's what
I was put on this earth for, to help people. And I see what
it does for
people."
Although parents have not directly told Hood that they appreciate
her music, Cole tells her that parents, doctors and staff love
the music.
"They've expressed wonderful things to her, and she tells
me," she said.
