Premature Babies Get ‘Cuddlers’ Care

A premature baby often must stay in a hospital incubator long after the mother has checked out. And during these lonely days and weeks, babies sometimes do not get the emotional support and stimulation they need.

The California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles is attempting to remedy this situation with its “Cuddlers” program. Volunteers are trained in the care, feeding and stimulation of babies and the special needs of premature babies.

About 25 persons have been trained since the program began in October, 1984, according to Wendy Free, the medical center’s director of volunteer services. She said the volunteers, all but one of whom are women, range in age from their early 20s to grandparents.

Verna Harshfield said she and her husband, Clark, both in their 70s, volunteered for the program because “we aren’t going to have any more grandchildren to cuddle.”

With premature babies, “Sometimes all they (the nurses) can do is open the incubator a little bit,” and touch them, said Verna Harshfield, while others can be taken out of the incubator for only a short time.

Active in senior citizens affairs during the week, the Harshfields volunteer on weekends. “To get in on the other end of the life span is a marvelous experience,” Verna Harshfield said. “It’s such an easy way to give love.”

Walking Babes in Arms

Bringing babies, parents and the great outdoors together has become almost a crusade for Harriet Bennish.

The West Los Angeles woman has received a $23,600 grant from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to train 15 parents (either singly or in couples) and 10 YMCA staff members to lead nature walks for parents and their babies.

She believes that nature walks “help develop the bonding between parent and baby” and that exercise can reduce the stress of becoming a new parent.

“Mothers with newborns tend to be indoors quite a bit,” she said, while a baby “can become stimulated just seeing leaves blown by the wind.”

She leads Sunday walks, sponsored by Pierce College, and weekday walks, offered through the Palisades-Malibu YMCA. Her training course begins Oct. 1. Applications may be filed with the Palisades-Malibu YMCA through Sept. 18.

Her walks focus on touching, smelling and listening, said Bennish who is assisted on walks by her 18-month-old daughter, Jessica.

“I try to make the babies happy,” she said. “If they’re happy, the parents are bound to be happy, too.”

At 87, a Real Swinger

Lora Chancellor, 87, played 36 holes of golf last week in preparation for a tournament. She shot a 105 and a 102.

But the West Los Angeles woman is not discouraged by her scores.

“102 and 105 is not to be sneezed at when you have a broken leg,” she said.

Chancellor expects to be the oldest player teeing off at the Los Angeles City Senior Women’s Golf Championship and Handicap Tournament Thursday and next Friday at Rancho Golf Course.

And even though she broke an ankle last January, Chancellor said she is feeling up to par.

A golfer since 1931, she says she still gets the same joy out of the game that she did half a century ago. When Chancellor, an Army nurse in World War I, can’t get out to Rancho, she plays on the nine-hole course at the Brentwood Veterans Administration facility. And when she can’t do that, she still manages to swing a club in her front yard.

After winning a club championship at Rancho in 1952, “I kind of let my game go,” said Chancellor, noting that her handicap was once eight but now is about 26.

She said approaches and putting are her strong points, although she can still hit 150-yard drives off the tee.

“I’ve always been accurate,” she said. “I’m never in the woods or the traps.”

Once a Bruin . . .

In 1930, Westwood wasn’t yet a village and the UCLA campus was gleaming new, having just moved from the Vermont Avenue site it shared with Los Angeles City College.

Fifty-five years have brought vast changes to the campus, the city surrounding it and the men who established the first fraternity there.

According to Herman Platt, president of the Phi Beta Delta fraternity in 1930, the area surrounding the campus “was empty” and the UCLA campus itself had only five buildings. Los Angeles, he said, “was a much smaller town. You could smell orange blossoms and see clear blue skys.”

Last Wednesday, for the first time in 55 years, Platt and 16 of his fraternity brothers held a reunion. Each had five minutes to recap his life since college, a little more than five seconds for each year.

“It all started with a picture” one of his old fraternity brothers sent him, Platt said. He spent many hours tracking down his college cohorts and sent prints to all the 1930 members of Phi Beta Delta he could find.

“They all enjoyed the picture so much,” he said. “Then we began communicating.”

Platt said he was relatively confident the fraternity brothers wouldn’t have difficulty recognizing each other. But just in case, he said, “I’ve designed pins with their names on them and their faces from 55 years ago.”