I have been working for days to reach through a situation in Minnesota.
A baby boy was born still, at 22 gestation weeks.
Later, the baby boy’s physical form, his body, was found at an off-site laundering service. He gently rolled out of the hospital blankets he was tucked in.
I have reached several local hospitals – the one that this baby was born at is published elsewhere but I tend to not think that’s the main point.
In an enormously horrendous turn of events, while the hospital staff were undergoing policy alertness to prevent such an incident from occurring again, it has now been reported that there is a second baby, born at 19 gestation weeks, whom the hospital cannot locate.
This isn’t an official “Amber Alert”. But, stillbirthday cries for the families of Minnesota.
Our color is lavender – it is pink and blue, combined. We are all in this together.
We cry for the family who is now wondering if their baby rolling from the sheets seemed frightening, when in fact their baby is beautiful, and we long to tell them so.
We cry for the laundering staff who lost trust in their own community hospitals and who now go to work with unease.
We cry for the families who have given birth to stillborn babies, who now fear that their baby may be the one who is unaccounted for.
We cry for the families who are pregnant, anticipating giving birth in their local hospitals, who now clutch their expanded bellies in fear, who now dread entering the hospital and who perceive the staff with suspicion, who now look with reservation upon the linens they are laboring on and wondering with dissatisfaction about the attention given to their babies.
These are fears that are all brought on by preventable and terrible mistakes.
More hospitals need to be comprehensively trained in birth and bereavement support, so that they can salvage and strengthen the trust they ought to have with their communities.
May Minnesota find this child. And may they find healing.
Thank you to the stillbirthday mothers and families who contacted me in regard to this situation many days ago, including Michelle, who first brought it to my attention. We truly are all in this together.
