MIRAMAR, FLA. (WSVN) - The Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit hosted a Read-A-Thon with their smallest patients in an effort to build a love of reading from birth.
For these newborns, reading is meant to encourage early brain development and create bonding opportunities with their family.
This year’s friendly competition marks the seventh year of the initiative at the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Memorial Hospital Miramar.
“We get the parents and families and staff involved in reading to our babies which we know is very important for parent bonding, language development, and taking a little bit of the stress off the NICU experience for parents,” said Elaine Green, nurse practitioner.
For 2026, the event has a jungle theme, encouraging the baby patients, their parents and nurses to be “wild about reading.”
The theme doesn’t only extend to the books being read. The participating babies in the NICU got all dressed up for the occasion.
“Just having a baby in the NICU is hard, but when you come in here and see her dressed up like that, you know, it brings light,” said parent Katherine Zaensi of her child dressed in zebra stripes.
The number of NICUs participating in the initiative has grown from 39 in 2020 to 249 last year. Memorial Hospital Miramar is ranked 23rd in the competition.
“They have little library books out there and they’re constantly telling us to read to him,” parent Husan Mohammed said. “We brought his siblings and they’re reading to him as well.”
September is also National Literacy Month, highlighting the importance of reading and writing in all age groups.
“The information they’re explaining to us of reading and how good it is for the kids, the development of the babies is big,” said parent Chris Ruwe.
Vanissa Usallan says her baby, Olive, has been through and accomplished a lot in the almost two months she’s been in the NICU.
“It brings in your inner childhood as well,” said Usallan. “Like, kind of nostalgic in a way, hearing these stories that I used to hear when I was little, and then being able to experience it reading to my own daughter, it’s very special.”
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