World News for Students of English

10-04-2024 15:00

More than 35 years ago, workers at a medical center in Chicago, USA, thought about how they could help babies.

Parents were sad at the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit. They couldn’t be with their babies all the time. The hospital staff knew that babies needed someone’s care when their parents weren’t there. The children felt better and they were healthier when someone held them, sang, and talked to them.

Volunteers took special training to learn how to cuddle the babies and make them feel better. Many of the volunteers were parents whose babies also spent time at the unit. Thanks to the volunteers, other parents didn’t feel guilty when they had to leave because they knew that someone else helped their child.

Difficult words: neonatal intensive care unit (a special area of the hospital where staff look after newborn babies), volunteer (a person who does work for no money), guilty (when a person feels bad that he did something wrong).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.