How Much Does Baby Shampoo Cost How Much Does Baby Blankets Cost

Final calendar week, NPR asked for photos of newborns with the pink-and-blue-striped flannel coating. We received close to two,000 photos, from almost every state in the U.S. NPR hide caption

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Part of an ongoing series on pregnancy and childbirth.

It may be an unassuming piece of textile, only it has woven itself prominently into American life.

If you've seen a photograph of a newborn baby recently, you've probably laid optics on it.

Zac and Penny Johnson'southward son Henry is four, only they still have his hospital blanket in a box with other keepsakes. Zac remembers bringing ane of these blankets dwelling to their dog Daisy to odour, in apprehension of Henry's homecoming. Andrea Hsu/NPR hide explanation

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Zac and Penny Johnson's son Henry is 4, just they yet have his infirmary blanket in a box with other keepsakes. Zac remembers bringing one of these blankets domicile to their dog Daisy to smell, in anticipation of Henry's homecoming.

Andrea Hsu/NPR

We're talking about a white flannel blanket with pink and blue stripes that is used in hospital delivery rooms beyond the state. It's ane of the get-go things to touch the skin of countless babies every twelvemonth.

Nurse Donna Clark, manager of the maternity ward at Advocate Condell Medical Heart in Libertyville, Ill., says her hospital has stocked the same blankets since she started working there some two decades ago.

"They're very absorbent when you first get them. They wash well," she says. "They're the right size for the baby. They're gender neutral, so we don't get a dad saying, 'You lot're putting my boy in pink or my girl in blue!' "

The blankets are made past the medical supply company Medline, based in Mundelein, Ill. They're part of the company'southward "Kuddle-Up" line.

Jim Robertson, president of Medline's Medcrest fabric sectionalisation, guesses that the visitor has produced close to 25 million of the blankets since 1980 alone.

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"We sell approximately a million and a half units a year of just this ane style, which is absolutely our No. i manner of blanket," he says, adding that the blanket has been a staple item for the visitor every bit far back as they can trace the catalogs — to the 1950s.

While the blankets were once made in the U.S., production moved overseas, and today they're made in Karachi, Islamic republic of pakistan.

Robertson says part of the entreatment of the pink-and-blueish-striped blanket is the cost. Wholesale, they sell for well-nigh $ii.50 apiece, which is less than the same blanket with a duck or a dinosaur impress.

Many of the blankets used in hospital delivery rooms and nurseries are faded: That'due south because they become laundered multiple times. Some hospitals wash their own linens. Others rent their linens from infirmary laundries, such as Healthcare Laundry Systems in Wheeling, Ill.

Zsejke Tusa, Healthcare Laundry Systems' director of sales, service and marketing, says last year they purchased 180,000 of the pink-and-blue-striped babe blankets. Each blanket lasts about 15 washes before it'due south thrown out or lost.

While many hospitals don't make a policy of giving receiving blankets to families, many of the blankets end upward leaving the hospitals with the babies.

At Advocate Condell Medical Eye, Jaime and Robert Wittenberg accept simply welcomed baby Alexander into the earth. They admit they took home 12 blankets afterward the nascence of their first child.

"We promise we won't take anymore!" they say, though Jaime notes that they used them for a long fourth dimension after the nascence of their beginning son.

Zac and Penny Johnson of Ann Arbor, Mich., have a box of keepsakes from their son Henry's birth. Henry is already four years onetime, only they still have one of his hospital blankets in the box.

Just days after Henry was born, Zac Johnson wrote on his blog that he was totally in beloved — with the blanket.

"I don't know, the design reminded me of sort of like Italian racing stripes," Johnson says, "nigh like would be on the side of a motorcycle helmet, or a cool old Steve McQueen race automobile."

An NPR call-out for photos of the classic blanket brought in close to 2,000 submissions from almost every state in the U.S. It turns out, not everyone loves the coating.

Maria Murillo processes make clean baby blankets at Healthcare Laundry Systems in Wheeling, Ill. Last year, the laundry purchased 180,000 blankets to supply to hospitals around Chicago. Each blanket lasts approximately fifteen washes earlier it's thrown out or lost. Andrea Hsu/NPR hide caption

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Andrea Hsu/NPR

Maria Murillo processes clean baby blankets at Healthcare Laundry Systems in Wheeling, Sick. Last year, the laundry purchased 180,000 blankets to supply to hospitals around Chicago. Each blanket lasts approximately 15 washes before it'due south thrown out or lost.

Andrea Hsu/NPR

Dana Slowik of Philadelphia found it "as well generic, rough and not that cute!"

And Julie Marsh of Los Angeles told NPR that she grew to detest the blankets, after spending the kickoff week of her baby's life on the pediatrics ward following a rough delivery. Today, she says the blanket "stirs mixed emotions — overwhelming joy, anxiety, frustration, a sense of incarceration, but generally I think the precious bond with a tiny, delicate, lucid human who became the eye of my globe."

While the coating has been a delinquent success for Medline, it'south not a production the visitor showcases much.

Medline's President Andy Mills says after all, information technology is a minor character in the momentous production that is childbirth.

"It'southward such a beautiful effect," Mills says. "It's not bad to exist part of it, but nosotros're non the leading role in there."

How Much Does Baby Shampoo Cost How Much Does Baby Blankets Cost

Source: https://www.npr.org/2011/07/22/138575125/born-in-the-usa-this-blanket-might-look-familiar

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