Her daughter Amelia was born premature and was admitted to the NICU. She wants to tell the parents: “You’ve got this.”
It can be stressful for parents to have a child in NICU. Sarah Pulley, who herself had a baby in NICU years ago understood this and opened a hair salon in the hospital to pamper parents of high-risk newborns. Four years ago, her daughter Amelia was born premature and was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit at two different hospitals for four months in Indianapolis, according to TODAY. “When Amelia contracted a virus, she was transferred to Riley Children’s Health,” said Pulley. She has a hair salon in Carmel, Indiana, called Three Seventeen Hair Design.
“We’re very familiar with those walls,” she added. After that experience, Pulley decided to become a volunteer for a non-profit, Ronald McDonald House Charities. They have a program called Ronald McDonald Family at the hospital. When Pulley came to know that the charity wanted to start a salon in one of the two family rooms, she offered to lead the initiative. “I knew this could be special,” she said. She donated a chair from her salon for the cause. She also asked her distributor and he gave her $150 worth of free hair products for the salon. The non-profit runs three programs: housing near hospitals for families of sick children, family rooms inside hospitals to eat and shower, and mobile programs that provide health care services to underserved communities.
We're so happy to have Sarah Pulley on our volunteer team. Not only is she talented and generous to the House with her time, she has an amazing story to share! Check out her story on Today.https://t.co/Rg0QIoCCQO
— RMHC Central Indiana (@RMHCCIN) October 6, 2022
The salon, Beauty Bar was opened on the third floor of the Riley Hospital. Once a month, she volunteers and provides hairstyling and self-care sessions to the parents of babies in the NICU.
Sarah Pulley is #WONDERFUL💞
— Operation Kindness (@KindnessChamps) October 10, 2022
This #kindnesschampion #hair salon owner in Carmel, IN who spent 4 months in the #NICU with her daughter Amelia is running a hair salon in the #hospital to give #parents whose children are in the NICE some TLC✂️❤️@TODAYshow https://t.co/4kZW7XSpsz
That's not it. The Beauty Bar provides a massage chair for sessions, snacks like fruit and granola bars, a nap pad for sleeping, and self-care sessions by Pulley on the days she volunteers. "We shampoo, blow dry, and give scalp massages on the second Wednesday of each month,” she said, adding that these sessions can be really helpful for parents in such situations. “You completely lose all sense of yourself when you have a baby in the NICU. My first mom completely relaxed in the chair; she just closed her eyes and breathed. My second was completely exhausted,” she told Mother.ly.
Pulley could connect with the third guest who came to the salon. The guest's daughter had similar issues to Amelia. “She had an emergency C-section and she was so thankful,” Pulley recalled. “Our experiences were very similar.”
“There’s something about the connection between moms and the power of a touch,” she added. Other than the self-care sessions, Pulley wants to tell the parents: “You’ve got this. There is hope in my story because my daughter is thriving,” said Pulley, and has a son named Joey. “We made it.”
References:
https://www.today.com/parents/babies/hair-salon-indiana-hospital-parents-nicu-babies-rcna50951
https://www.mother.ly/news/viral-trending/nicu-parents-hair-salon-hospital/
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Nitat Termmee
