2023-10-30 08:05:00
Only my body and I were able to meet Mar and Cayetana. With Mar it happened after three months. “There’s no heartbeat,” the sonographer said. The doctor explained to me that this happens to many women, she asked me about my environment, and yes, the statistics coincide. Two friends, three cousins, my aunts, my grandmother, co-workers. I thought a lot about them, how much silence they had had for so much pain. They gave me leave, but soon “Better to go back to work, so as not to think about this all day.” The capitalist logic of work that heals and I returned without a head to think. Until I convinced myself that maybe “it happened for something.” That was in October 2021.
The doctor recommended expelling it naturally. I had had my first child by cesarean section, I didn’t know what a contraction was and I didn’t imagine so much physical pain. Three months of bleeding followed, it had not gone well. Every 15 days I arrived at an office full of happy bellies. Around Christmas the indication was: “it is better to do a curettage.” I didn’t go back again and in January the loss stopped.
Cayetana was noticeable, I felt her move, we talked at night. It was in the fifth month of pregnancy, December 2022. She still hurts so much. When you lose your baby you cry, she wonders things and you don’t catch your breath.. The doctor comes and tells you that she didn’t finish, that for that to happen you have to give birth to her.
You return home with your belly like a deflated balloon, your milk starting to come down, and they give you a pill to stop that from happening. With Caye I heard for the first time talking about perinatal mental health. They told me that in Neuquén there was a psychologist. That World Cup December, every phone had the same answer: “no turn.” They gave me the information about a center in Buenos Aires. I contacted Agostina Caruso, a psychologist specializing in perinatal grief, who began seeing me two days before Christmas. I thanked her for the courtesy, she replied: “There are no dates for these things.”
The father was sad, but he did not express it, he felt that «I had no right, because I was the one who put the body«, grandmothers and aunts too. The brother, at 3 and 4 years old, went through the duels. He was asking where Caye was. We made the mistake of giving it a star. I needed to know when he was coming back, what the star was. The psychologist later said that it was better for her to communicate with exact words. It’s so hard to say the word death. “Remember me” by Carolina Aufranc, can accompany you on that.
Caye hurts, The babies that appear on the networks and the babies that are born hurt, although of course we are happy for them. I think it is very important that help, that places and health care professionals are prepared. And then, respect your own time to accept. I wanted silence and solitude, but others need you to be close. It’s always good to put a hug first, a “I’m sorry!” and the question “Do you need me to accompany you?”
It seems that there is no right to be sad, that he is a son who never was, that we must let go quickly. I hated those words, because I don’t want to let them go, I look for a place where it hurts less to continue.
This is Lorena’s story. He wrote it and sent it in an email whose subject says: “sadder.” Now it is a shared and public sadness. Sometimes you have to “loot life”, peel the slice, show the wound, to break indifference.
“You are young, you can have more children”
The Perinatal death is that which occurs between the 22nd week of gestation and up to seven days after the birth of the baby., according to the definition of the World Health Organization (WHO). “We talk about gestational death because it can be at any time that the pregnancy stopsthat it stops having a heartbeat, or that it has something incompatible with life or with survival in utero or outside the womb,” explained Lorena Warzel, a graduate in obstetrics at the Castro Rendón hospital in Neuquén.
These deaths are everyday. «One in four pregnancies are not born alive. One in four is a lot and according to the WHO it is 2.6 million a year,” added the professional.
He assured that women and people with the capacity to conceive who undergo desired pregnancies “are physiologically and hormonally prepared to bring a baby alive into the world and when this does not happen, we call it other grief, because It is the only duel in which hormones intervene (oxytocin, prolactin) that are not there, for example, when a brother, father or mother dies.
Warzel developed a guide in 2015, which has been implemented since 2017 in Castro Rendón, to guide care in these cases and guarantee good support and dignified treatment. This month Congress passed the “Johanna Law” that proposes a comprehensive approach (see separate). “It costs a lot because it is a very sensitive issue, we are also affected by this impact of death,” she said.
He stated that the guide is not only intended for the medical or nursing staff, but for all personnel who attend childbirth and postpartum, including teaching and administrative staff. In 2021, one was created at the provincial level.
He maintained that in each situation, according to the gestational age, the best path must be evaluated with the patient and her family. Alternatives should be offered for that birth, ask if they want to have contact, clothe them, keep the clothes or perfume that was chosen for that baby and keep it in a memory box. “Grief is a natural process for every person, so it should not be interrupted,” the professional remarked.
Physical space is also relevant. «In infrastructure, many hospitals are not prepared, gestational and perinatal death is not expected. What we do at the Castro Rendón hospital and in other hospitals, which I know from colleagues, is This family is isolated at that moment not in a delivery room, but in another sector. “We use the gynecology sector to notify the staff that they are grieving there and that they are saying goodbye to that baby.”Warzel said.
How to accompany this pain? «It is always important to be there. “Do not ignore it, do not pretend that it did not happen, asking about that baby gives it value, materialization that it existed and is important for that family.”he stressed.
Grief does not end at the border of the hospital or clinic. «Many things we say in society like “You’re young, you can have more children,” “It doesn’t matter if he was little.” “What we hear every day, especially at work,” the obstetrician mentioned, are not advisable comments. “We cannot say that all people have to do this when they go to work, but rather that each person is going to” arm themselves with these tools, “she said.
Warzel is part of the Compartilo Foundation, which accompanies the processes of gestational grief. They find it with that name on Facebook.
What is Johanna Law?
In 2014 Johanna Piferrer lost a desired child in the 33rd week of pregnancy. She reported abuse and after extensive mourning she began working on a law, which was passed last September by Congress and bears her name.
What it establishes are medical-care procedures for the care of women and pregnant people in the face of perinatal death. It is applicable in both the public and private health sectors throughout the country. It covers social and prepaid works.
The objectives of Law 27,733 are to create strategies so that women, pregnant women, couples and/or families can go through and accept the loss. in an environment of containment and carewith the accompaniment of specialists, and provide the information necessary to decide. For example, defining whether they want to make contact with the body or not, learning about breastfeeding, inhibition and/or donation methods, receiving post-hospitalization medical and psychological treatments.
Also agree on guidelines for health teams that include certification and final destination of the body, and that contemplate the right to respect for private and family life.
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