BabyTalk: Giving every newborn a voice

When Deirdre Bradley first stepped into the softly lit Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Drogheda’s Our Lady of Lourdes’ Hospital after lockdown lifted, she found a strange absence. Infants were surrounded by noise - the hiss of oxygen and blip of heart monitors - but little or none of it was human.

“Coming out of Covid we realised there were newborn NICU babies who’d never even heard their parents’ voices,” explains Deirdre, a speech and language therapist and co-founder of ‘BabyTalk’, a reading initiative slowly impacting how Ireland thinks about neonatal care.

Funded by the HSE’s SPARK Innovation Programme and supported by Libraries Ireland, the first pilot at OLOL revealed something remarkable: a sixfold increase in parents talking or reading to their babies.

Now Deirdre wants to expand the service nationwide, with plans to establish a library at the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) at Cavan General Hospital next month.

The process is bedded in research which shows that babies who hear more speech early on develop stronger language and literacy skills later.

“Premature or unwell babies are at higher risk of language delays. They’re often surrounded by machines instead of voices,” says Deirdre, who admits she and her fellow team members had to “start from zero”.

Partnering with Stanford University’s Dr. Melissa Scala, who has already done extensive study into how early sound exposure influences and encourages neuro development- Deirdre alongside HSE librarian Ruth O’Rourke and clinical skills facilitator Maura Daly set about observing how much interaction was happening on their wards.

The initial result? “Almost none.”

So they built a toolkit: baby-friendly books, reading guides, and protocols based on developmental stages. Some stories are just a few lines long, designed for premature babies who can only handle limited stimulation.

But soon, the project expanded to include recordings of parents’ voices- a lifeline for those too unwell or too far away to visit daily. Using Tonieboxes, mums, dads, even siblings began recording stories and messages that get played to the baby while in hospital.

“If we have a baby with us for 100 days who has never met their brother or sister we record the sibling’s voice. Its an important connection.”

When the pilot’s first round finished, the results were clear: more reading, more talking, and most importantly, more bonding.

The project’s next evolution came through partnering with local libraries.

“We wanted to make sure that when the babies go home, the reading journey continues,” explains Deirdre, who also stresses the importance of accessibility. Babytalk iterature is produced in multiple languages- Polish, Arabic, Romanian, even Irish- and they also print QR codes linking to storytime videos and other neuroscience explainers.

Babytalk got its national launch in Bettystown after the summer.

The goal is that no parent, and no baby, gets left behind.

For families with literacy challenges, the Toniebox breaks down that particular barrier. Parents can listen to stories, repeat them, or even make up their own.

“It’s about confidence,” Bradley says. “It’s very much about inclusion.”

Crucially, where Cavan and others don’t already have a speech and language therapist, Deirdre will step in to offer additional support.

One challenge though remains: singing.

Set to feature in the 2026 iteration of Babytalk, Deirdre admits: “Parents are shy.”

But, like before, she is determined to help them to find their voice.

Publishing outcomes however will only ever tell part of the story and Deirdre suggests the real metric is in seeing the faint flutter of a baby’s eyelids as their mother or father reads to them.

“It’s about rehumanising that space,” Bradley says of often sterile NICU setting. “And it works because this is something they can do- it makes them feel like parents again. Parents are the real experts when it comes to their babies. We’re just the cheerleaders.”