The Lleida hospital opens a pioneering room to mourn the death of a baby
The initiative at Arnau de Vilanova is born from the demand of a mother of a creature that was born dead
LleidaIt all started with Oriol. He was born dead. This was in 2019, when the Arnau de Vilanova Hospital in Lleida only had a basic protocol for cases of neonatal death. The mother of that child, Ester Mora, tried to follow all the steps she was advised to take to come to terms with the loss. She and her partner held their son for a long time to say goodbye properly, to have a real image of what they loved so much and had not been able to have. “Ask for the time, privacy, and silence you need,” indicates this first protocol, drafted in 2016. Those parents from Lleida spent half an hour with him in the same hospital room and, when the hospital staff took Oriol away to manage his body, they continued their mourning as best they could.
The first big question came from a girl of only four years old who entered the hospital room shortly after with a diaper in her hands to put on her little brother. "Where is Oriol, mama?", she asked. "He has died, my daughter", he replied. "Wow, why don't we put bandages on him or give him a very big medicine?", she proposed, without getting an answer. "Where is he? I want to see him", she asked. "It can't be, they have taken him away".
Once at home, the girl continued with the same unease. "But, why couldn't I see him?", she asked again and again. Even, some years later, the girl made a spontaneous writing with the drawing of those medicines that could not save her little brother.
Ester never knew how to answer him. “I don’t know, dear, I don’t know why you couldn’t see him, I just know this isn’t right.” And, from then on, Ester promised to do something so that what happened would never happen to anyone else again.
Through friendships (especially with Carme Santamaria and Beatriz Martínez, mothers of Pablo and Marco, respectively) and a timely conversation with her friend and child psychologist Marta Argilés, representative of the Obra Social Nufri in Mollerussa, a pioneering project was able to be financed and executed, seeing the light of day just a few weeks ago. It is called Espai Niu and it is the first room exclusively dedicated to perinatal grief in a public hospital in Spain.
Attached to one of the rooms in the Maternity area of Arnau de Vilanova, this space is equipped with everything considered essential to address the pain of a baby's death (and now included in an updated guide from 2024): natural lighting, neutral and light colors, comfortable seating, and nearby, a cold cot to keep the infant's body for as long as necessary. It even has a children's corner so that the siblings of the deceased can draw or read a story during the vigil. Comfort is sought so that both parents and their family and close friends can bid a warm farewell with the utmost possible privacy.
“The room is designed to accompany grief through sensory experience,” explains psychologist Itziar Fernández, coordinator and designer of Espai Niu, author of most of the drawings and messages visible on its walls. And indeed, all memories will be important for grief. Not only the visual memories of the baby and their personal belongings, but also everything that accompanies them. A diffuser with a wide range of essences, tools to prepare infusions to taste, a subtle glass ball hanging in the shape of a tear, and the mural of a tree where families can hang cut-out fruits with the written name of their lost child. “We are not alone. You are not alone,” preaches one of the slogans written on the wall.
“It’s not the same to leave the hospital desperate, with the feeling that humanity is a disaster, as to do so comforted and with the idea of hope,” argues Itziar Fernández to defend the Espai Niu project.
The room has been used less than ten times since it was inaugurated last April. It is specially designed for cases of prenatal death (during the last weeks of gestation) and early neonatal death (shortly after birth). But the room is even open to any other gestational loss. They are not usually more than seventy a year, in total. At Arnau, the number of births far exceeds 2,000 annually.
“Breaking the silence that often surrounds perinatal grief is fundamental to giving visibility to these losses and improving the support we offer both from the healthcare system and from society,” defends Dr. Emilio Maestre, specialist physician of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Service of the hospital and coordinator of perinatal grief care.
“The loss of a baby during gestation or the first days of life has a very profound emotional impact and offering an intimate and respectful environment helps families to live the process with more support and humanity,” they argue at the hospital. “I wish I could have had a room like this to say goodbye to Oriol,” Ester confesses. Despite everything, she believes that thanks to that child she never had, “we are now stronger and more sensitive people, better people.”