St Antonius Hospital in Nieuwegein has had a special product developed. From now on, the maternity ward will use a special palliative for babies who die.
This is the first time a hospital in the Netherlands has had such furniture made for babies who die before or during delivery. Still, according to the hospital, it is important that such a thing is there. "To cope with the loss of a baby, it is very important for parents to be able to say goodbye in an appropriate way. This little piece of furniture helps with that," Sandra Tangelder, head of Care and Support, which includes the hospital's Mortuary, said in a press release.
Birth care at St Antonius Hospital follows the vision of 'Family Centered Care', which means that the entire family is central to the care provided around birth. One of its features is that mother and child are not separated after childbirth, even when one of the two needs extra care.
"We were keen to apply this concept even if a baby dies during or shortly after birth," says Sandra. "Together with the Geboortezorg staff, we started looking for a nice way for the family of premature and full-term deceased babies to stay together for as long and as close as possible. This helps in saying goodbye. "
Mortuary and Birth Care staff contacted a company specialising in the development of updrafts. "With the knowledge and experience of these three parties together, we succeeded in developing a beautiful palliative unit. This allows the deceased baby to stay with the parents in the maternity suite 24 hours a day until they are allowed to go home."
Waterbaring
The unit also has space for personal items, such as a cuddly toy or photograph. A canopy will be added soon. In addition to regular interment, the new unit can also be used for water confinement. Water confinement is a method whereby the prematurely born baby can be preserved longer and more beautifully by placing the baby in a thermo-acrylate container in water. "The furniture's specially integrated cooling plate ensures that the water stays at the right temperature and the baby stays looking beautiful."
In regular confinement, the furniture is made up like a cot and the cooling plate also ensures that the baby maintains the right temperature. This is of great importance as parents often still want to bury the baby at home. "New life and death, welcoming and saying goodbye, it's so close together, a very profound process for parents," Sandra says. "We hope in this way to contribute to saying goodbye in an appropriate way. You can only do it right once."
Source: St Antonius Hospital
