MOBILE, Ala. — Some of the most recognizable leaders in Mobile have spent part of this month doing something that has nothing to do with budgets, votes or ribbon cuttings: sitting in the neonatal intensive care unit at USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital and reading books aloud to premature and critically ill newborns during an international NICU read-a-thon.
The read-a-thon is a yearly push to get more parents, caregivers and volunteers reading to the smallest hospital patients. University of South Alabama President Jo Bonner is among the local government, community and university figures who have taken a turn in the reading chair at the hospital’s level III NICU. The event wraps up Thursday, Sept. 24.
Who has taken a turn in the reading chair
Bonner has been joined by Mobile Mayor Spiro Cheriogotis, USA Executive Vice President and Provost Andi Kent, Ph.D., and members of the Junior League of Mobile, all of whom have read to infants in the unit since the read-a-thon began.
The effort has added up quickly. Earlier this week, with several days still left on the calendar, more than 50 reading sessions had already been logged at the hospital. More than 150 books had been donated by that point, contributed by individuals, schools and businesses from around the area.
The hospital has encouraged parents and caregivers of babies in the unit to join in, too, reading to their own infants throughout the event. For families whose newborns may be surrounded by monitors, tubes and the steady hum of medical equipment, a book offers a simple way to connect.
A mayor’s note to residents
Cheriogotis described his visit in the nightly email he sends to Mobile residents, writing about the experience in his Sept. 21 message and thanking hospital leaders for inviting him.
“Some of the most meaningful moments in life are the ones where we can give a little bit of ourselves to someone else. Having the opportunity to read to two babies in the NICU was incredibly special, and I’m thankful for the honor. It’s truly never too early to introduce a child to a book.”
The mayor’s message echoed the central idea behind the read-a-thon: that reading to a baby is not something to postpone until a child is older, sitting up or able to follow a story, but something that can begin in the earliest days of life, even inside an intensive care unit.
Why reading matters for the tiniest patients
Reading to babies is an important part of early development. When infants hear stories and spoken language, it helps support brain development. The time spent reading also gives parents and caregivers a chance to bond with babies who, because of their medical needs, may spend weeks or months in the hospital rather than at home.
That bonding piece carries special weight in a NICU. Parents of premature or sick newborns often cannot hold their babies as much as they would like, and much of the day-to-day care falls to doctors, nurses and therapists. Reading is one of the few things a parent can do at the bedside that requires no special training and no equipment beyond a book, and it lets a mother, father or grandparent play an active role in a baby’s day.
The read-a-thon is organized each year by Babies With Books, a teen-led literacy organization focused on promoting reading in neonatal intensive care units. The group’s stated mission is to give families with hospitalized babies books and to educate them on how and why NICU reading promotes infant brain development, supports family bonding and decreases stress for both infants and parents.
The organization points out that babies in the NICU face a higher risk of developmental challenges, such as speech delays, because of medical complications, unusual sound environments, separation from family and other stressors. Reading, it notes, has been linked to benefits in speech and language development, school readiness and later success.
An event that has grown every year
The 2026 international read-a-thon runs Sept. 14 through Sept. 24. Participating hospitals track their reading sessions and compete to encourage as much reading as possible during that window. Babies With Books provides participating units with organizational guides, family education materials, multilingual book lists with free online resources and tracking templates, and there is no cost for hospitals to take part.
The event has expanded steadily since its early years. According to the organization’s figures:
- 2020: 39 NICUs logged 6,140 reading sessions
- 2021: 105 NICUs logged 18,040 sessions
- 2022: 154 NICUs logged 31,879 sessions
- 2023: 192 NICUs logged 51,575 sessions
- 2024: 224 NICUs logged 61,054 sessions
- 2025: 249 NICUs logged 73,817 sessions
In last year’s event, the organization reported an average of 1.48 reading sessions per infant per day across participating units. Beyond the annual read-a-thon, Babies With Books runs programs in which teen volunteers meet with NICU families to talk about the benefits of reading and make sure each family leaves with at least one book, and it shares a free procedural guide so hospitals can start similar programs of their own.
The region’s only level III NICU
Children’s & Women’s Hospital, located at 1700 Center Street in Mobile, is part of the University of South Alabama’s academic health system. Its neonatal intensive care unit is the only level III NICU in the region, a 98-bed unit where extremely premature and sick infants are born and cared for by highly skilled physicians and other providers. Some of the babies treated there arrive as early as 22 weeks’ gestation.
A level III designation means a unit is equipped to care for the most fragile newborns, including those born very early and those who need sustained life support, such as help breathing, along with a full range of pediatric specialists. For families across the central Gulf Coast, the unit is where the smallest and sickest babies are sent. The hospital also operates the region’s only neonatal transport service, bringing critically ill newborns in from other facilities.
Each year, roughly 1,000 babies “graduate” from the NICU, a term used for infants who are well enough to go home. The unit has some of the best outcomes in the nation for the quality of life of babies born there. Depending on how much care they need, some infants stay in the NICU for six months or longer, which means many families spend a significant part of their child’s first year inside its walls.
Children’s & Women’s delivers more babies each year than any other hospital in Mobile, according to USA Health. In addition to the NICU, it houses the region’s only dedicated pediatric emergency center, a pediatric intensive care unit and a wide range of pediatric subspecialty services, along with maternal and high-risk obstetric care.
Books that stay behind
The donated books are a lasting piece of the effort. The more than 150 volumes contributed by local residents, schools and businesses so far give families in the unit something to read long after the dignitaries have gone back to their offices, and they help make reading a regular part of daily life in the NICU rather than a one-week event.
For the university, the read-a-thon also connected leaders of South Alabama’s academic side, including its president and its provost, with the health system that the university operates. For the city, it offered its mayor a firsthand look at a unit that serves families from across the region at some of the most difficult moments of their lives.
And for the parents who picked up a book and read to their own babies during the event, the hope is that the habit continues when the read-a-thon ends Thursday, and follows their children home when they finally graduate from the NICU.