Building Community One Onesie at a Time

Cathy Siciliano’s son William was born at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford in 2012. He had eyes that sparkled but were horizontally misaligned—a condition called “strabismus.” At ten months old, William came back for surgery to realign his eye muscles, so that both eyes would work together, and eventually allow him to see correctly.

“So far, he is doing great,” Cathy says. “He needs to tell us if he is seeing in 3-D, and will need to be older and more developed cognitively to do that.” As William continues his care with us, Cathy has been inspired to give back to other moms and newborns.

When William was still a baby, Cathy started attending our Mother-Baby Mornings class. The class connects new moms with each other to provide support and discussion, facilitated by one of our experts. It was during this time that Cathy first learned of a volunteer service here to collect and distribute gently used baby clothing to preemies and newborns in need at our hospital.

For the past two years, Cathy has devoted her time to gathering clothing donated by other moms from the group, whose children have outgrown their newborn outfits. She washes and folds the donated clothing, and places them in layettes for social workers to distribute to new moms for their newborns.

Inspired by her love for her son and being a kindred spirit with other new moms, Cathy says she relates to and understands the needs of new moms when they bring their little ones home for the first time, and loves giving back to the community. It’s a community she’s helped to build “from one Packard mom to another,” she says.