Voorhees photographer donates time at Virtua
By: Matthew Shinkle
Tags: Health, Heart Health, New Jersey, Newborn

Voorhees photographer donates time at Virtua

The “Little Hats, Big Hearts” initiative each year aims to spread awareness to new moms about the importance of heart health for both their newborn and the family as a whole. Matthew Shinkle Follow Feb 19, 2019 · 3 min read

Baby Essence born at a Virtua in South Jersey

For the fourth year in a row during February, Virtua is participating in the American Heart Association’s “Little Hats, Big Hearts” initiative to emphasize the importance of heart health for all in honor of February’s designation as Heart Month for the AHA.

All babies born at Virtua hospitals this month will receive a homemade red hat, along with an information kit, encouraging new moms to take control of their family’s heart health. Between Virtua’s two inpatient, maternity services locations in both Voorhees and Burlington County, they are expecting to deliver approximately 600 red hats and information kit combos this month.

“We find ‘Little Hats, Big Hearts’ to be a really engaging way to help to bring to the forefront heart health at the earliest stage of a baby’s life,” said Lauren Ochs, Virtua assistant vice president of women’s and children’s services. “It really is a meaningful way for our new moms to engage around heart health and the importance of it.”

The information kits contain a wealth of educational material, as well as heart-healthy recipes, for parents and their newborns.

This year, to provide new mothers with an additional gift as well as spread the word even more about the importance of heart health, Voorhees photographer David Michael Howarth volunteered his time to capture photos of red-hatted newborns in Virtua Memorial’s Level II special care nursery.

The hope was to help spread the word even more about the importance of heart health, even from an early age, with Feb. 7 to 14 being recognized as Congenital Heart Defects Awareness Week. Congenital heart defects are structural problems within the heart present at birth.

Howarth donated his time and took hundreds of photos of the newborns at Virtua, doing a full photo shoot and being assisted by multiple members of Virtua nursing staff.

Howarth was delighted when he was approached by Virtua about doing the photo-shoot because the issues they were hoping to spread awareness on hit him on a personal level: His son struggles with a heart disease called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, otherwise known as HCM.

About a month ago, he found out his now 5-year-old son would need open heart surgery.

“So when they contacted me about this, if I was willing to donate my time, I was just like absolutely yes,” Howarth said. “They couldn’t have better timing to raise awareness about this type of stuff, I was absolutely happy to do it.”

His son was diagnosed with HCM, a disease that abnormally thickens the heart muscle thus making it harder to pump blood, at 5 weeks old by a pediatrician at Virtua, making this initiative a natural way to give back for Howarth.

Virtua looks forward to being able to give the red hats and information kits to new moms throughout the rest of the month, enabling the message of heart health to be spread across the region through social media.

“The nursing staff is really excited to be able to give those out to the new moms,” said Ochs. “The photos turned out great and they were eye-catching when they were published on social media to really draw people’s attention that Virtua promotes heart health at the youngest of ages. Healthy lives is really what it’s all about.”

To learn more about AHA’s “Little Hats, Big Hearts” initiative and how you can get involved by making and donating hats, visit www.heart.org/en/get-involved/little-hats-big-hearts.