SCARBOROUGH – A knitting group at the Scarborough Public Library raises awareness of shaken baby syndrome.

SCARBOROUGH – “A stitch in time saves nine,” says the old English proverb. But a group of women in Scarborough say they’ll be thrilled if the time they’ve spent knitting hats to raise awareness of shaken baby syndrome saves the life of even one child.

The Scarborough Library Knitting Group formed one year ago this week as the brainchild of the children’s librarian, Louise Capizzo, who envisioned a mother-daughter activity. Although some participants still bring their children, the group evolved instead to fill a different unmet need, as an ad hoc women’s social group. Each Saturday, from 10 a.m. until noon, area residents of all knitting abilities, from their mid 20s to their early 80s, gather in the sun-filled conference room at the library to swap tips and tricks on life and learning, as well as knitting and pearling.

Recently, the dynamic of the group, which numbers from between four and eight woman each week, has grown even closer as the knitters have taken on a community project at the suggestion of meeting facilitator Elaine Caron. As part of the Click for Babies initiative, Caron and her fellow Scarborough knitters made purple baby caps for distribution to new parents under the Period of Purple Crying program, a national campaign to prevent shaken baby syndrome.

A longtime nurse in the ICU at Boston Children’s Hospital, Caron saw first hand time and again the terrible devastation borne of a moment’s frustration, when a young parent harms a tiny infant in an attempt the stop its incessant crying.

”I just took care of too many shaken babies that were either completely neurologically devastated for the rest of their lives, or they died and I trundled them off to the morgue,” said Caron, during this past week’s knitting session.

“It’s a preventable disease,” said Caron. “All it takes to prevent it is to have the parent know that it’s OK to put the baby down in a safe place and walk away. New parents think that if the baby is crying, there’s something wrong and as a parent they should be able to fix it, and if they can’t, and they’re tired, they’re exhausted, they’re hungry, they’re frustrated, they just can’t take it anymore, they overreact.”

“Of course babies cry,” said knitting group member Sylvan Thorncraft, as she worked a project under the watchful eye of her 5-year-old daughter Solie. “It’s really hard to figure out how to be a human being. There’s all this stuff to figure out, like eating and pooping that it never had to do before. No wonder it’s upsetting.”

Purple crying

According to Robin Rubenstein, another member of the knitting group, the purple caps are meant to serve as a reminder to parents both that babies will cry – and that’s OK – and that there is a community of support out there to lean on, after the initial rush of the baby shower, when it’s just a tired dad, a howling baby, and a new normal of seemingly infinite, ear-piecing shrieks.

“In a small way, we are responding to something that’s critical,” said knitting group member Dana Redmond. “Shaken baby syndrome is a huge crime, babies have been killed, parents and caretakers have been jailed for the rest of their lives. If this saves just one baby or even just creates awareness to this situation, that’s a great story. It really needs to be out there.”

Marilyn Barr, founder and executive director of the National Center on shaken baby syndrome, has been quoted saying it takes as little as five seconds to seriously injure an infant’s brain. More than 5,500 children nationwide are victims of shaken baby syndrome each year, she says, and of those, about 25 percent eventually die from their injuries, while half sustain lasting trauma. What can seem like a gentle shake to a parent or guardian can jar a baby’s developing brain, slamming it against the unfused bone of the newborn skull and tearing vital blood vessels. Even when children do not succumb to injuries from a sudden jostling their weak neck muscles cannot control, they can still suffer permanent damage, leading to a lifetime of mental retardation and physical disability.

Dr. Lawrence Ricci, a pediatrician at the Portland-based Spurwink agency, has said cases of shaken baby syndrome diagnosed in Maine hospitals are fairly low. “The average is that we see four or five cases a year,” he has said. However, there was a “huge spike” in 2008 and 2009 about three times the normal number of cases and Ricci notes that many more cases go unreported and undiagnosed every year.

Even before the 2009 spike, cases of shaken baby syndrome, also known as abusive head trauma (AHT) were on the rise in Maine. According to a 2011 report by Kelley Bowen, a registered nurse at Maine Medical Center, initial hospitalizations attributed to AHT rose 129 percent, from seven cases total in the 2000-2002 timeframe, to 16 reported between 2006 and 2008.

As a result, in October 2008 Bowen and Ricci began distributing materials from the Period of Purple Crying program developed by Barr’s Utah-based center to all 30 birthing centers in Maine. Those materials include a 10-minute DVD on the so-called purple period, between two and five months of life, when some babies, though not colic, can still cry for hours at a time.

The DVD joins training already given to new parents by Maine hospitals, including basic instruction on how to change a diaper and install a car seat. Since 2010, the DVD has come accompanied by a soft purple knit cap.

The hats are distributed under the Click for Babies program – click in this case being the sound of knitting needles at work – which launched its third annual cap drive April 22. According to Lanelle Freeman of the Waterville-based Kennebec Valley Community Action Program, who oversees Click for Babies in Maine, the hats are meant to serve as a reminder to parents of what they learned in the DVD about when crying is normal and how best to react.

Freeman is collecting baby caps from now until October, at which point they will be given to the Child Abuse Council of Maine for distribution to hospitals and to the Maine Families home visiting program.

“Every baby born in Maine between November, December and January will receive a purple hat as part of the education awareness campaign,” said Freeman, on Monday. “Although we work on the program all year round and parents always get the DVD, those are the months we really push for awareness.”

Last year, Lanelle said, she collected more than enough hats to cover each of the 1,200 newborns for in the state, each hand-made made by groups like the Scarborough knitters, along with senior homes, schools, craft and knitting shops and various individuals inspired by blog posts on the topic. Excess hats are sent to the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome for distribution to any of the 14 states and three Canadian provinces that have adopted the Period of Purple Crying awareness program but lack sufficient hats for all newborns.

“It’s really a wide range of where we get them from,” Freeman said, “and they go all over.”

“This is really an easy and inexpensive way for someone to help,” said Caron. “I mean, I can get three of these caps from one average-sized skein of yarn. I was very fortunate in that every lady in our group signed on to make a hat.”

A ‘wonderful’ library

With the purple hat project is over, the Scarborough knitters say their group is stronger and more tight-knit – pardon the pun – than ever before as it begins its second year at what all members agree is “one of the best and most active libraries in the state.” The library is, they say, a place where community programming goes part and parcel with the lending of books.

“It’s such a wonderful experience,” said Caron, with a laugh. “Some days we share ideas on knitting, other times we talk about nothing but food.”

“We really, literally cover the gamut of anything and everything,” agreed group member Robin Rubinstein, pointing to the multi-cultural nature of the knitters, including one Indian member, Sailaja Panogni, who has shared some her life stories – “Things we couldn’t even imagine,” said Rubenstein – though filtered through the shared female experience.

“What’s great is the incredible spectrum of different people and experiences we’ve all had,” said Rubinstein.

“For me, I love knitting, and what it means as a woman, and the tradition handed down from mothers and grandmothers,” said Thorncraft. “So, to be in this circle with woman – although men can be good knitters and are welcome, too – because there is so much that separates us, and these days it’s really to just be on Facebook or whatever, to be together on this path in real time, there’s a real sweetness to that.

“One of my favorite things is the way the conversation has space to ebb and flow,” said Thorncraft. “If you are, say, having coffee with someone, there are those awkward pauses when you’re like, ‘Now what do I say?’ But in a group like this, there’s a soft focus, where you have time to reflect or to let things bubble up.”

“I’d say it’s the best experience, and cheaper and better than therapy,” agreed Rubenstein, “especially in that none of us knew each other before we came together. So, there are no boundaries.”

“It’s priceless coming to a group like this,” said Redmond. “Each woman brings so much, you always end up taking away more than you bring.”

Sylvan Thorncraft and her daughter, Solie, are part of the knitting group meeting at the Scarborough Public Library. The group recently took part in the Click for Babies initiative by knitting purple baby caps to raise awareness for shaken baby syndrome. Photos by Rich Obrey

Dana Redmond, left, and Elaine Caron are two Scarborough knitters meeting Saturday mornings at the library.