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Riley Children’s Health
Honoree, Volunteer
Before Paul Looney retired from AT&T after 40 years, he had already found his next calling as a baby cuddler.
A cuddler is a volunteer who holds babies in the intensive care unit, providing developmentally essential human touch when a parent can’t be there. Cuddling posts are in demand, and applicants are vetted with a background check and placed on a
wait list.
Looney learned about cuddlers when his newborn grandson spent three days in a neonatal intensive care unit in St. Louis. Inspired by the warmth he witnessed, he signed up to volunteer at Riley Children’s Health in 2012. He spent a few hours each week wheeling a book cart around to patients and reading to those who asked.
He finally got into a rocking chair when Riley started a NICU Cuddling Team in 2013. The job is as nice as it sounds. “They melt in your arms,” Looney said of the infants he rocks to sleep. “It’s always been rewarding to be able to get them to relax and be calm. You get to help them forget their pain for a little bit.”
When friends find out what he does, they wonder if it’s difficult to be around sick children every week. Looney said he doesn’t see the tubes and IVs when the babies smile and relax in his arms. Of course, the reality of their hospital stay is impossible to avoid. He held one child in her final moments, in the absence of parents or relatives.
“It’s not normal for volunteers to be doing that,” Looney said. “But my supervisor knew I’d want to. I’m glad I was able to be there for her. No one else was.”
Staff rely on Looney as an integral member of their volunteer community. He has pitched in as a Santa’s helper and as a consultant on construction of the new maternity ward, where one day he had to simulate kidnapping a baby as part of a training exercise. Now that he’s retired, Looney has extended his volunteering from one afternoon a week to two days and joined the Volunteer Impact team, helping visitors find their way around the complex campus.
The 65-year-old’s contribution goes beyond the hours he commits. It’s measured by the empathy, compassion and generosity he brings to the hospital every day—moments of kindness that touch witnesses as well as recipients. A perfect example is when a nurse saw Looney carrying a boy down a hallway. It was to “give his mother a break,” Looney explained to the child when asked. The boy then laid his head on Looney’s shoulder and said, “I love you.”
Looney is rewarded with the same kind of tenderness. He recalls another young patient and parent who accepted an escort to an appointment. Afterward, they bumped into Looney by the elevators. The patient reached for Looney’s hand and asked him to walk them out, which he gladly did.
“We’re blessed,” Looney said of his wife, three children and seven grandchildren. “There are a lot of people who struggle, and they’re sitting in a hospital for months at a time. We share in their happiness and their grief with them. It’s something simple that everyone can do.”•
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