Attending births is like a drug, it makes you addicted. Years after hearing this phrase, I couldn’t agree more. Accompanying women on one of those special days that they will remember for the rest of their lives is a privilege. Being a midwife is the oldest profession in the world and also the most beautiful. The day finally arrives when they devirtualize this little being who has suppressed his entire existence since the appearance of the two lines on the pregnancy test.
But sometimes that day is different. When you arrive at the hospital, you already see something just by seeing the faces of your teammates in the relay. It is not tiredness after a long night of 12 hours of work, it is something else, these faces denote that something extraordinary is happening. The atmosphere is cold, sad. There is also a relief because they have been “liberated”.
– Is something wrong?
-It’s the wife of number three, there is a loss.
Nowadays, most of us are better prepared for what awaits us that day. We want to be right even without the mother present and that is why we talk about perinatal loss. Before, today, only a few people, the least, continue to use the word “crossed fetus” or “dead fetus”, probably as a defense mechanism, as a barrier against our own feelings of helplessness and sadness. We are not going to fool ourselves either, until recently, there was no training on how to properly care for these families and these expressions were just another part of the compendium of bad practices. Just like placing the mother in the same maternity ward as happy women with their babies or giving words of encouragement that sounded more like stabs like “you are very young” or “your angel is already in heaven”.
The day you have to assist a woman who is not going to receive her son, but who is going to receive him and say goodbye to him, is undoubtedly another day. In some teams, a draw is held to determine who is in charge of accompanying the different women in the birth process, even in the case of perinatal death. In my work team there is no lottery, usually someone takes it on, there is always someone who takes the step and, normally, the rest of the colleagues feel relieved.
In the last two years I have had to accompany three couples in this trance, but it is not always possible. I was unable to take charge when my wife was carrying our daughters, because that day you fall to the ground and find yourself facing a harsh reality. It could have happened to you, the ball of fortune decided that it would come back to other people, but you are also in the hype.
When you arrive in the room, you see the closed door with a drawing placed on the door, a butterfly with blue wings. In this way, we avoid the mistakes of the past, all the staff who are going to enter must know what is happening and the butterfly is the symbol of perinatal losses. I remember that a nursing technician, who had just changed shifts and had not received adequate information, entered the room a little confused and said something like: “It’s good that there is not much left, you have your child here right now. , you will look forward to having him with you. This is a room without a crib and as far away as possible from the others where you can hear the cry of a newborn.
You come in, you introduce yourself. You leave for a while, a few words. Sometimes, on a word, a member of the couple who was facing the moment with integrity breaks down and starts crying. At that moment, I can’t hold my gaze, I feel helpless and I look at the ground, it’s still early but later, I could offer him a hug or put my hand on his with empathetic pressure.
-I have no words, I’m sorry, I’m here to accompany you, help you and do what you want.
Sometimes you can barely hold on and when you leave the room you also cry because, even if you have experienced it several times, it does not make you immune to the pain. If there are many women in the delivery rooms, the usual thing is to have between 2 and 3, and you have to be able to change those emotions of sadness and regret that you feel when leaving a room where a dead child is awaited by others in a very different way when you go to a room where the happy meeting with a child is eagerly awaited. It is an emotional roller coaster.
Once you have given yourself some time, you decide to talk about what the moment of birth should be like. Childbirth and maternity classes never present this scenario. Here, you talk to the mother about how she wants to experience it, if she wants to say goodbye to her baby and hold him in her arms. This is what we propose because we know that it will perhaps be better for what comes next, the duel. We recommend something very different from what was done before: not so long ago, we tried to prevent parents from seeing their dead baby, believing that this would avoid some form of suffering. However, today we all know that seeing your child facilitates mourning. We suggest that you see him and hold him in your arms for as long as you want to say goodbye properly, and even, as surprising as it may seem, we recommend that you take a photo to serve as a souvenir.
We make a memory box. We midwives buy them and put in the hat and the little clothes that the baby wears lightly, a footprint and a brochure from an association of mothers and families in perinatal mourning, essential for later support. As for the photograph, it is another bitter pill to swallow. We do not have a Polaroid-type service camera, which would be ideal. Therefore, if the family agrees and gives their permission, we do it with the baby on his mother’s chest and, although they ask for it at that time, you leave them your email and we save it to send it to them later. In case of doubt, we tell you that if you have not contacted us for a year, we will delete them. Having that intimate memory of other people among your files burns you, as if it were something that did not belong to you. The last time, less than a year ago, they asked me between one and two months after giving birth in an emotional email: I sent them their photos and when they confirmed that they had them in their possession, I was able to free them and myself from this responsibility of having this precious memory.
At the time of delivery, a storm of emotions usually breaks out. During dilation, there are usually ups and downs, then they remain stoic, but when the time comes, families usually break up and cry a lot. For us it is also a hard moment: you receive the baby, you take him in your arms as in any other birth and you offer him to the mother so that she places him on her chest, you cover him and leave your face uncovered as if he was going to breathe. Then, once your work is finished with the delivery and possible sutures, we leave so that you can say goodbye to your baby in complete privacy. It frees you to go out because you can also cry calmly and release the emotions you have experienced. There are families who call you quickly, but others, I would say the majority, take a long time to separate from their children for the first and last time.
It is an ambivalent feeling that is difficult to explain: you feel sad but, at the same time, if you believe you have done your job well in the accompaniment, emotions of peace and tranquility also come because you feel that your help has served the family in this situation. We also do not have any form of psychological help for midwives. Once we asked for help and psychiatry told us that they could not cope and that they could not take care of us. Mental health is both on the agenda and so neglected.
Those days you come home and hug your daughters like never before. Holding a lifeless baby in your hands is a feeling you remember and haunt you for days until the defense mechanisms we put in place every day do their job and you get back the life you had before… until next time.
