January 31st, 2023, 9 Shevat 5783

I completely sympathise with the mother in Rome.

Her 3-day-old baby died while still in the hospital's maternity ward. The mother had at first, I imagine at check-in, accepted the rooming-in system, of keeping the incoming baby in her room at all times. Her husband and relatives were not allowed to visit because of anti-covid regulations.

Mother and child had a very long labour and were exhausted, she reports that she often asked the nurses for help, in order to sleep a little, perhaps entrust the baby to the nursery for a few hours, but the nurses did not help her. The family members describe harshness, rigidity on their part: it seems that one night the mother had to go to the bathroom and asked her bed neighbour for help, and while this kind woman was happily cradling the baby she was shouted at by the nurse who barged into the room: "Here everyone cares for her child!"

The other night the mother had to breastfeed the baby, despite her tiredness. Then oblivion. The neighbour notices that the lady was lying on the baby and raises the alarm. The mother is informed of the tragedy.

Now a woman returns home, after a happy, though exhausting birth, without her baby.

Back in the 1980s, during my experience as a new mother, I realised that maternity in hospitals was exploited for many interests except those of mother and child. For example, the boom in caesarean sections and the push for artificial breast-feeding. It is also true that these two innovations sometimes save a life.

Already several years ago, the marketing strategy of the powdered milk multinationals was exposed: they were helped by medical and nursing staff in order to 'create' new customers.

And here is the point, where is the person? Everyone, from the patients, who must respect the workers, to the nurses, working under great pressure, to the doctors, all should govern the departments not only by the scientific rules but also with the good sense of a family's father/mother.

When I gave birth, I too suffered a very harsh treatment, thank G@d not fatal for my baby or me. We were in a private ward (not by my choice but by a strange agreement between my gynaecologist and the hospital).

It is the 14th of August: at the control ultrasound after the water broke, they tell me that the baby is head first so, even though I didn't want to, I have to accept the caesarean section. I fall asleep listening to the surgeon's favourite rock music at full volume. My daughter is born a little underweight, so they tell me she will stay in the thermal cradle (but not an incubator) for a while. I ask to see her, so that I could also breastfeed her immediately, but the nurses tell me that they cannot bring her to me, but I need to go three levels down to reach her. Having had a caesarean I have a hard time, and her daddy can only see her through the glass. I remember that, as night falls, a midwife moved out of compassion brings me a little bundle with my baby inside, telling me that she stole her as she could not accept that I was prevented from seeing her.

But it is a quick moment. Since they insist that they can not bring her to me, as I want to give her my milk I ask them for the pump: a cerberus of a nurse arrives, pushing a trolley into my room, full of thin glass tubes that looked like something out of the 1940s; the nurse shouts at me "don't break them, it's glass!" and leaves. My flabbergasted mother looked at me with compassion. As soon as I pick up the thing, it falls and shatters into a thousand pieces. I face the platoon with my head bowed and for a few days I supplied my own bottles; then they told me that the baby preferred powdered milk.

They won, the circuit of gynaecologist, renowned hospital, nurses: not because of my inexperience -that is the starting point, from which there are different ways to go about it - but because of my fear of breathing, my fear of my instincts, of my body. However, and it is a big however, I was able to go home with my daughter, and give her as much love and care as I could. Not to underestimate how important breastfeeding is, but thank G@d my baby really loved the alternative milk.

Compassion, not judgement, is the way hospital workers should go with any mother, no matter if first or fifth child. Sense and sensibility, everybody should breath, remembering that childbirth is a natural event, of course with rules but also paying attention to small, unexpected, but life-changing signs of mother and baby.

Rowing in the same direction, recognising the humanity within oneself and within the other person, to feel human.

LiOr