During the month of February, babies born at Duke University and Duke Regional hospitals will receive tiny red hats to raise awareness about heart health for babies, moms and the entire family.
The campaign, called Little Hats, Big Hearts, is coordinated by the American Heart Association.
This week volunteers from the Durham Police Department dropped off almost 200 of these hats to Duke, which officers, staff and other volunteers knitted and crocheted over several months. The hats are packaged with information about heart health and congenital heart defects in babies.
One of every 100 babies are born with a congenital heart defect, and often these are life-threatening, said Joseph W. Turek, M.D., Ph.D., chief of pediatric heart surgery for Duke Health.