A GRANDMOTHER knitted a batch of festive hats for new born babies to wear on Christmas Day at Worcestershire Royal Hospital.

Sally Wood sent in a batch of more than half a dozen Christmassy woolly hats for the newborn babies to wear at the hospital, where her daughter is training as a midwife.

And it was a bumper day for babies this Christmas Day at the Worcester hospital on Charles Hastings Way, with an impressive 14 births.

“I didn’t realise there would be that many, otherwise I would’ve made more,” said Mrs Wood, 56, who has been knitting hats and cardigans for the hospital for a couple of years.

Mrs Wood, from Redditch, said she has been knitting since she was 10 and began making hats and cardigans for the babies at Alexandra Hospital about six years ago.

“I have been knitting hats and things for babies for a fair few years,” she said. “First at Redditch where my daughter had her son. At Redditch they were desperate for them.”

Her daughter began working in maternity support after the birth of her son before going on to begin her midwifery training at WRH, and has been delivering sacks of her mum’s knitting ever since.

With it being Christmas, Mrs Wood, who is a stay-at-home-grandmother to her four grandchildren, made her latest batch particularly festive.

“They were Christmassy themed, all red and white. The girls’ ones had Ziggy-zaggy patterns too,” she said.

Mrs Wood went on to say she has taken a break from knitting over Christmas but usually knits one or two woolly hats a day – with her daughter taking in a batch of 30 a few weeks ago.

She said hospitals rely on the good will of volunteers to make the woolly hats and clothes worn by newborns – with staff otherwise having to fashion clothes out of bandages.

She also buys second-hand premature baby clothes from charity shops, washes them and sends them to the hospital.

“They often find it hard to find small stuff for babies who come early – and it’s nice to put them in clothes, otherwise they are just naked.”

Mrs Wood also recently knitted a blanket and sent it to the hospital to sell and raise money for its Meadow Birth Centre, which opened in 2015 and is only part-funded by the NHS.