Meet the woman known as the "Grandma Cuddler."
Joan Hart, 81, is not your average grandma.
In fact, she doesn’t even have her own kids. Instead, she has helped nurture thousands of babies.
Hart is a volunteer at NewYork-Presbyterian’s Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
She has been part of the Cuddler Program since it started in 2011.
The Cuddler Program was created to bring comfort to babies whose parents can’t be there at all times.
“The hardest is to see little ones in such pain.”
Hart has no medical training and is not medically treating the babies but is giving them love and lots of cuddles.
She may not have her own kids, but she treats the babies just like her own.
“The best part is the actual cuddling, holding them in my arms and seeing them respond is a wonderful thing too. That they know they’re being loved. They’re comfortable in my arms, I have no other job except to make them happy and keep them safe and comfortable,” she said.
Hart talks to the babies, sings to them and has just the right touch to soothe a crying baby.
While she is happy when the premature babies are healthy enough to go home, she says saying goodbye to the babies is bittersweet.
"I pray that they have a good life ahead of them. I sometimes well up because I won't see them ... but I was part of their life," Hart said.