When Phoebe Ferguson was born in August, she weighed 9½ pounds, and her skin was pink and warm.
The absence of a cry, however, brought a harsh reminder that the newborn had died in her mother’s womb earlier that day.
Her parents had only a few hours to hold her before nurses sent her to the morgue. Later, the nurses brought her back, slightly more mottled and cooler to the touch, so that her parents could cradle their baby a little longer.
“I carried her for nine months. I wanted to see her,” said her mother, Stacy Ferguson. “I wanted to memorize every part of her. Giving her back was the hardest thing.”
Between Christmas and New Year’s one in 160 babies are stillborn in the U.S. That’s 24,000 babies lost each year.
For parents, parting with a stillborn baby is the first step in a long and difficult grieving process, one that can take a lifetime to come to terms with.
A new device called the Cuddle Cot, installed at Southwest Regional Maternity Suites this week, aims to make that journey a little easier.
Beth Forbus, the creator of Sarah’s Laughter, a Christian Support Group for Infertility & Child Loss, donated the $3,000 Cuddle Cot to the Maternity Suites.
The support group is active across the country and recently began a chapter at Hospice Ministries in Brookhaven.
There are support groups for Pregnancy After Infertility or Loss (P.A.I.L.), adoption, Moms of Miracles (MoMs) and those for men only.
“A cuddle cot is an extension of time, allowing bereaved parents the chance to make memories in hospital after their baby has died,” Forbus said. “When a baby dies in hospital, whether it’s a stillbirth or a neonatal death, parents are now offered choices as to what they can do with their baby. It enables parents to spend longer with their baby before the baby’s appearance starts to change. The baby’s body starts to break down.”
With this cooling device, the baby’s body is in a stabile temperature and can remain up to five days in the Cuddle Cot, extending the time a family can share the baby with other family members, take photos, take hand and footprints of the baby.
Losing a newborn brings on a particularly complex grief, she said, because it is so unexpected and so terribly drastic.
“If your baby has died, the only memories that parents have are the ones that created in hospital,” Forbus said. “If a mother has suffered a late miscarriage or stillbirth, or if a baby has passed away later on after the birth, the family may want to use a cuddle cot to spend more time with and get to know their baby before the body is taken away.”
Forbus said during her presentation of the Cuddle Cot that she hopes her donation is seldom used.
“It is our prayer that this cot gathers dust in a corner and never is used,” she said. “We know this terrible grief happens 24,000 times in the United States and if the worst happens, Southwest Maternity Suites is prepared with a loving way to allow families time to grieve their loss.”
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Sarah’s Laughter offers online support groups and a regular pod cast on Infertility. You may subscribe to podcast from your favorite podcast app or visit podcast.sarahs-laughter.com. For more information on the support group, email Karlee Gilbert at karleegilbert@sarahs-laughter.com.
