Four years later, I still have Raúl's clothes, the baby I lost before he was born

These women experience a tremendous sense of loss and pain and undergo a birth or cesarean section knowing that they are not going to have the child they expected. In many cases, and while still in a state of shock, they have to listen to comforting phrases such as 'these are things that happen', 'nothing is wrong, you will have more children...', they must go back to work and lead a normal life in very few weeks and do not receive the necessary psychological care.

Currently in our country when a woman suffers a gestational or perinatal death within the first 180 days of pregnancy (the equivalent of 6 months) she does not have the right to leave or maternity leave, while the woman who has suffered it at 185 days or more if you have it.

Claudia Gómez, who lost her son in the 17th week of pregnancy, asks that the law also attend to the first through a campaign through Change.org that has collected more than 37,000 signatures and addressed to the Ministry of Labor .

THEY HAVE SPOKEN

"Sitting on a hospital bed, watching my husband's heart break as he tried to hold the broken pieces of mine, I realized that the only way to begin to heal is to first ask, 'Are you okay?'" . These are Meghan Markle's words in a letter published in 'The New York Times' in which she recounted how she lost her second child during pregnancy.

The Duchess of Sussex has not been the only one who has recently voiced the pain felt by women (and men) who have seen their expectations of having a child broken when their pregnancy was already advanced. The model Chrissy Teigen, married to the musician John Legend, also spoke about it when she lost what was to be her third child at five months of gestation.

"Jack will always be loved, we will tell our children about him and he will continue to exist in the wind and in the trees and in the butterflies (...) His ashes are in a small box, waiting to be buried under a tree in our new house , the one we bought with her room in mind," the model wrote on her Instagram account alongside black-and-white photos from the hospital where she had an abortion.

THE MEMORY OF RAUL

Before picking up her 15-month-old son Alejandro from the nursery, MCS cries as she remembers the day she lost Raúl, who was to be her first-born, after years of operations and fertility treatments: "At 22 weeks of pregnancy died of anemia caused by a parvovirus. They did a caesarean section with general anesthesia so that I would not find out and suffer less. I was terrible, I already had the trolley ready and some clothes, which I still keep, four years later, like a Raoul's memory.

MCS did not ask for psychological help to overcome his perinatal mourning, but now he admits that it would not have gone badly for him. Experts from the Juana Crespo Team Psychological Unit define perinatal grief as "a loss based on the needs and desires that we project as parents."

"It is a traumatic life event that encompasses a range of feelings and behaviors, such as sadness, anger, fear, guilt, apathy, hyperactivity, etc.", continue the specialists.

PROTOCOL AND WITHDRAWAL

Dr. Paloma Baviera, a gynecologist and former midwife for 10 years, explains that there is a protocol to deal with these cases in most hospitals, which happens, for example, by not putting those affected on the same floor as the parturients and avoiding taking them to the delivery room, where they would coincide with other women who do give birth to their child, they would see them and hear them cry.

Bavaria also recommends sedating the woman to avoid the pain of childbirth whose end will not be the reward of having a baby in her arms, and fix the body of the fetus and show the parents at least their little face, so they can say goodbye of the.

"All this," says the specialist, "by adapting to the needs of each person, because each woman in these circumstances needs different treatment." Dr. Baviera affirms that "the particular situation of the patients should be studied, but, apart from medical complications, she would recommend a minimum of two months of medical leave so that they can overcome the grieving process before recovering their normal life".