![]() ![]() While she was initially only planning to distribute stickers at Kingston Hospital where her babies were born, media attention around the purple butterfly stickers has led to their use in the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, and The Netherlands, according to Nationwide Children's. They have raised almost $6,000 to create purple butterfly stickers and cot cards for NICU bassinets, as well as purple butterfly blankets for surviving babies, as a way to remember the siblings with whom they shared a womb, Smith told Finley's Footprints. To further spread Skye's legacy, and help parents cope with the unique experience of infant loss in multiple pregnancies, Smith started the Skye High Foundation. This represents a baby that was part of a multiple pregnancy, but sadly not all the babies survived and parents have chosen that they wish to make others aware. The poster includes the purple butterfly logo and the following text: Butterfly Logos: When visiting this hospital either as a patient, partner, relative, or friends, please be aware of the butterfly logo which may be on some cots or incubators. This experience would change her life, and motivated her to find a way to prevent other NICU moms who had lost a twin or babies in larger sets of multiples avoid the same hurt.Īs she explains to Finley's Footprints, "We wanted something that would explain their story for them, without them having to say anything." Her solution: placing purple butterfly stickers on the bassinets of babies who had lost a twin, and an accompanying poster on the NICU wall explaining to workers and parents the message behind the stickers and allowing them to treat those NICU parents with sensitivity and empathy about their unique experiences of infant loss. ![]() One day, a fellow NICU twin mom, unaware that Smith had lost a twin, complained to her that she was "lucky" she didn't have twins. Unfortunately, that meant having to tell their story to every new person who walked in the room. As she told Today, "As time passed, people stopped talking about Skye.After about four weeks, everyone acted as though nothing had happened, meaning the families around me had no idea about our situation." While the staff and visitors who knew about the twins were compassionate and kind, Smith found that after time they simply stopped talking about the twin she lost, as if she hadn't existed at all. Their surviving twin Callie required a weeks-long NICU stay to recover after birth. Since starting the Skye High Foundation to raise money for these stickers in 2016, Smith's purple butterflies, and compassion for this unique group of loss parents, has spread to hospitals worldwide. To help other loss parents of twins and multiples, Smith created purple butterfly stickers for NICU bassinets and a poster explaining that the babies in those bassinets had lost their twin sibling. ![]() As her surviving twin, Callie, recovered in the NICU at Kingston Hospital in the UK, Smith was struck by how many people simply stopped talking about the child she lost, and how unbelievably difficult it was to hear people who didn't know she had twins say careless things or make hurtful comments, even if it was by accident. The purple butterfly sticker originated with UK mom Millie Smith, who lost one of her twin daughters, Skye, to anencephaly, a neural tube defect, just three hours after her birth in 2016, according to Today. So I asked our NICU nurse what it meant, and she told me the heartbreaking, but important, significance of this symbol for NICU parents. And then I noticed a single purple butterfly on a baby's crib, and had no idea what it was or why it was there. When my son had to stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) after he was born, I saw a variety of different decorations on the babies' bassinets, including stickers, name cards, and family photos.
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