A LOSS SO DEEP FOR A LITTLE ONE SO SMALL

There is nothing that makes an obstetrician to go cold all over like a panicked phone call from your patient the dreaded words: “I can’t feel my baby moving!”

Sophia* was one of such patient. She called me first thing in the morning before I woke up. She was frantic and almost hysterical. She was 34 weeks along, excited about having her first baby in a few weeks’ time. She had shopped with the excitement of a new mom, set up a new baby nursery, all pink and white with frills and lace.

I directed her to go the radiologist at 8.00a.m. to have an ultrasound done. She was too anxious to wait for me to get to the office for a review. By the time I saw her, she was a mess. Her eyes were puffy and red, she couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. It was gut-wrenching for both of us. Going through induction of labour to deliver the little one was emotionally excruciating. Watching her braving the labour pains knowing there would be nothing to show for it at the end of it all was more than anyone should have to bear. Her baby died of a cord accident; the umbilical cord was tied up in a knot that tightened and cut off blood supply to the baby, resulting in death.

I do wonder sometimes, as the little one’s oxygen supply was snuffed out, did she feel it? Did she struggle like a person drowning just to get a lungful of air, or in this case, a placenta-full of oxygen from mommy? Did her dark warm pool of amniotic fluid turn darker as she faded in and out of consciousness, before being enveloped in the deceptively warm cloud of death? Was she in pain? Well, we shall never know as fetuses haven’t yet managed to communicate with us.

As painful as Sophia’s experience was, it gets worse for other moms. Last week I sat in the house reading a message from a colleague about one of us who had lost his newborn twin babies. Staring at the phone feeling devastated, I wondered what the mom felt.

To be excited about nurturing not one but two lives. To bear the discomforts of pregnancy with dignity and grace because your calling is higher than your comfort. To deliver these tiny little beings and watch then fight for dear life, hanging by a thread but not giving up. To spend every living moment saying a prayer for them because it is all you can do. To not have the pleasure of holding them to your breast and nourishing them as is every mother’s dream because they are too tiny to suckle.

The crushing blow to your heart after the horribly harsh journey when you are told that they are no more. That there journey has ended before yours as their mother even began. That they never got home to the nursery you lovingly decorated. Never got to lie in the cot you carefully selected. Never got to wear the clothes you spent hours shopping for.

Who consoles such a mother? Where do they go to lay down the burdening pain in their heart? What do they ask for when they get down on their knees to pray? They asked and asked in earnest that their little angels may live and God said NO! So what next? The price to pay for the loss of the little ones is hefty. The physical wounds resulting from surgery, the staggering hospital bills as no expense has been spared to give the little angels a fighting chance and the emotional toll on the family is no mean feat. But nothing compares to the mother’s heartbreak that will never fully heal.

Did you know that there are online sites fully dedicated to poetry from parents who have lost their loved angels expressing their pain? Neither did I. I read a few of them and they brought tears to my eyes.

Perinatal death is a dragon whose fire we have not succeeded in putting out in our country. We focus on maternal death because it makes us feel guilty to lose an adult people have known for years when we could have prevented it. Yet despite being so vocal about it, our maternal mortality rate is still at an unacceptable 362/100,000.

However, our attitudes to the loss of babies in the period just before delivery, during birth and in the first 28 days after, are a little callous. We quickly want to brush the loss aside and move on. Because we did not know this little person. We did not get to call them by name or learn their personality. The neonatal mortality rate in 2017 stood at 22/1000 live births. We are not hearing enough noise about this.

A lot of these babies could be saved with functional healthcare systems. But when the country boasts a handful of neonatologists and most newborn units across the country are poorly equipped and lack neonatal nurses to care for the babies in need, we are surely condemning them to a quick exit.

For the mom going through such a deep sense of loss, if you are not sure what to say to them, don’t say anything. They are going through unimaginable pain. They are blaming themselves yet they crossed unimaginable territory in the fight to keep their babies alive. They have lost faith in God? Let them be; they will come around when it is time. They do not want to see a newborn? It is in order; don’t flaunt yours. Do not do any more harm.

Our psychologists and psychiatrists must take the frontline in supporting these moms. As their caregivers, obstetricians and neonatologists need extra sensitivity training and counselling skills to effectively deal with the shell of a woman the loss leaves behind. You cannot claim to provide care when you are terrified at the sight of tears. The mother will cry a river in your office. If it makes you sweat instead of drawing out the humane side of you, you are in the wrong profession!