Cuddle cribs (“CuddleCots”): The invention that gives parents more time to say goodbye
When a baby dies before or just after being born, time becomes the enemy. The body changes quickly, and hospitals often hurry the goodbye.
That’s where the CuddleCot comes in: a crib with a cooling system that slows this process and gives families back something that seemed impossible, more hours beside their child.
Midwives like Elle Franks explain it this way: the device allows parents to bathe and dress the baby, and siblings and grandparents to meet them, without the baby’s cold body becoming unbearable to touch.
In the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, hospitals have added these cribs thanks to donations, many driven by mothers like Olivia Cadwallader, who lost her daughter Amelia at 36 weeks and decided that other families should not have to say goodbye in a rush.
It doesn’t heal the pain or change what happened. But it gives each family the simplest and hardest gift to obtain in a hospital: extra minutes to love someone who left far too soon.