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.
Click photo for complete news story and photo source.
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.
This is completely unacceptable. Thank you for sharing. My thoughts are with those families in Minnesota.
This story shocks and disturbs me. Thankfully the hospital where my son was stillborn in WI was absolutely wonderful. I can not imagine what these families are feeling. My heart goes out to them.
Do they not bring the babies to their parents?
Sadly this does not suprise me. After my second son was stillborn at 24 wks and I awke from the surgery I asked to see my wee man. I held him all day (from 11am to 9pm). When the staff finally told me I needed to hand him over to the mortuary I complied. He came in and wrapped him in a HUGE adult size white sheet. I thought it was odd that they wouldnt have a smaller sheet. I mean how hard would it be to cut up a sheet and do a little sewing to make a proper sized sheet. It looked like he had just rolled up a sheet by the time he was done (which by the way took forever because there was so much darn sheet to deal with). Another thing that still bothers me is we had him cremated and they make you buy a cardboard box or coffin to transport the peeson in. We opted for the $50 box but were warned that they didnt have any child sized boxes so our son would be in a box big enough for an adult sliding around. Again, how hard would it be to have smaller boxes? They did tell us we could bring a shoe box for, a shoebox really? I can barely move under the weight of my agony and you want me to go home, find a shoebox and come back with it.
So yes I can see how this happened as horrible as it is.