Calling all knitters… can you put your nimblest needles forward for Sherwood Forest Hospitals’ smallest patients?

King’s Mill Hospital needs your donations of handmade hats – red, orange or green – for newborn babies.

The hats will be used on the birthing suite to make sure new babies are kept warm as soon as they are born. All new babies wear either a red, orange or green hat, making it easy for midwives to see how long each needs to wear a hat for – just like a traffic light system.

Maternity Ward Sister Penny Col, said: “Our priority is to make sure that every single new baby wears a hat to keep them warm. Maintaining the temperature of a new baby is important as babies that are warm tend to do much better in their first few hours of life.

“By putting colour-coded hats on our new babies our midwives will be able to easily identify when the hat can be taken off and recognise any babies that may need a little bit more attention and need keeping warm for longer.”

Green hats are put on babies that are born healthy and are a good weight. Babies with green hats keep them on for six hours.

The orange hats are worn by babies that require a little bit more attention, maybe because they were born early or are small. Orange hats should be worn for 12 hours.

Red hats are worn by babies that are more at risk, maybe of infection, and the red indicates that the baby should wear a hat for the first 12 hours of its life and then should be re-assessed after this time to see if they should be kept warm for longer.

The hats should be knitted using soft baby wool and to any newborn hat pattern.

All hats will be gratefully received and can be donated by taking them to King’s Mill Hospital’s Volunteers Hub in the main entrance to the hospital.