Hair Salon Opens Inside Hospital To Pamper Parents Of NICU Babies

• Having a baby and learning that they need to be in the neonatal intensive care unit can take its toll on the parents.
• Moms especially need time to take a nap, get a massage or simply relax.
• The newly opened “Beauty Bar” of the Ronald McDonald Family Room at the Maternity Tower in Riley’s Children’s Health has a hair salon that promises no bad hair day for moms.

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Giving birth to a baby needing intensive care can be stressful as an Indiana mom Sarah Pulley knows too well.

Four years ago, Pulley’s daughter Amelia was born prematurely.  The baby had to stay for four months in a neonatal intensive care unit.  When the baby contracted a virus, she had to be transferred to Riley’s Children’s Health.

Just last year, she volunteered at the hospital’s Ronald McDonald House Family Room. When she heard that Riley’s Children’s Health was planning on opening a hair salon in one of its two family rooms, she got excited.  As a salon owner, she knew it was going to be special.

She offered to lead in the plan by donating a chair from her salon. She also volunteered her styling skills and even talked to her distributor who donated $150 worth of hair care products.

And so, “Beauty Bar” opened for all the parents who deliver at the hospital on the third floor of Ronald McDonald Family Room Maternity Tower at Riley.

Parents can snack on granola bars and fruits, relax in a HydroMassage chair and even squeeze in a nap in a pod.

For the salon services, Pulley said, “We shampoo, blow dry and give scalp massages on the second Wednesday of each month.”

When she gives her beauty treatments to the stressed parents, she feels just as special. “There’s something about the connection between moms and the power of touch,” Pulley said.

Pulley wants parents to know that they are not alone: “You’ve got this.”

It is something she knows too well. Her daughter is thriving and she has made it through.  Other parents can, too. 

Source: Today