UMAMANITA nace en memoria de nuestra hija Uma que nació sin vida el 30 de diciembre 2007. Uma significa Luz y por ella queremos aportar un poquito de luz en este momento de oscuridad

Si has llegado hasta esta página es probable que estes pasando por una muerte perinatal o neonatal, o quizás alguien cerca de ti acaba de perder a su bebé. Perder un hijo antes de que nazca, durante el parto o al poco tiempo después es una de las experiencias mas duras y menos esperadas que tienen que vivir unos padres. Todos los planes que tenías para el futuro con tu bebé desaparecen en un instante y lo que queda es un vacío que parece que jamás se llenará.

Sabemos que no podemos arreglar ni vivir por ti este momento tan doloroso que te toca vivir pero sí sabemos, por experiencia, que sentirse entendido, apoyado y reconocido sí ayuda. Tener un sitio donde acudir con dudas o simplemente donde poder compartir con alguien lo que sientes ayuda a seguir dando esos pasitos necesarios para reconstruir tu vida.

Al vivir la experiencia de la muerte perinatal nos dimos cuenta de la gran falta de ayuda y comprensión para los padres y sus familiares que hay en España. Con la ayuda de varias organizaciones en Inglaterra, Irlanda e Italia y testimonios de madres y padres de España hemos podido reunir la información que hay en esta página. Aunque sabemos que en muchos hospitales hay una gran falta de humanidad o simplemente falta de información para tratar con la muerte de un bebé, hemos querido poner lo que se entiende como lo “ideal”; refiriéndonos a cómo deben actuar los médicos/enfermeras en relación a la muerte perinatal.

Nuestra intención es sensibilizar y conseguir un protocolo general para la muerte perinatal y neonatal.

Un abrazo Jillian & Juan

UMA.MANITA was born in memory of our daughter Uma who was stillborn on the 30th of December 2007. One of the many meanings of Uma is Light and because of that we would like to shed some light on this time of darkness.

“Your baby’s heart is not beating anymore”, it was one o’clock on the afternoon of 29th of December, these were the words that the doctor was saying to us but we we’re not understanding them. The doctor explained that Uma’s birth would be an induced vaginal birth and they left us alone while they prepared a room for us. We were in shock, disbelief, denial, there were no tears.

We were moved into a room on our own, unfortunately beside the delivery room, where we stayed for the next 24 hours while my body tried to come to terms with what was happening. Within 3 hours I had been given oxytoxin, buscapine and an epidural. The nurses were nice but nobody came and spoke to us, no one gave us any information or advice, not to say a choice about what was going to happen. We didn’t know any better and apart from that we were just trying to hold it together for each other.

As my body wasn’t reacting I was pumped with more of everything. Then I was given a four hour “break” to let my body rest, which ended up being eight hours, during which we “heard” at least two healthy babies being born. Strangely enough that wasn’t the hardest part, at the end of the day it gave us hope. Hearing an unborn babies heart monitor for half an hour, really hurt. After the eight hour break and a change of shift I was switched on again. After a while I began to feel contractions on my right side, when I spoke to the midwife she commented that if I could hold out a bit it would be better. I had been give the epidural so early it had slowed down the process a lot. So I held on. It helped me to feel those contractions, helped me to get in touch with my body and as of that my body started to react.

With the time for Uma’s birth coming close we decided to speak to one of the midwives about seeing and spending time with the baby (we didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl). The midwife spoke to us about the disastrous affect of seeing your dead child has on parents, she spoke to us about conception problems and miscarriage. She told us that we were better off having the picture of what we imagined our child to be like rather than the real image. When we asked about what condition the baby would be in her answer was “I’m not even going to go into that” to which I interpreted as “awful”. She said that she wouldn’t show me the baby but that if Juan wanted to see our baby the law obliges her to allow it. We entered the delivery room, Juan promising not to look. Uma was born at 18:45 on the 30th of December. We never saw her.

As the days went by we began to realise the lack of professionalism in the hospital, the lack of training the staff has to deal with stillbirth, and the emotional terrorism we were subjected to, sadly from someone who thought she was doing it in our best interest. From investigating on the internet and talking to family and friends who have been through stillbirth in England and Ireland we realised that there was a huge hole in the Spanish public health system. Not only that but we also realised that there was very little, if any, help organizations in Spain.

All official papers and the urn we were given containing Uma’s ashes, have the “name” “female foetus of Jillian Cassidy”. Juan figures as a “friend” because we are not married and appears as the father on one paper because he filled it in. Uma does not exist in Spain, we have her death certificate but there is no stillbirth register here. We have her hand and foot print because on the 1st of Juanuary we phoned pathology and asked them to do them for us.

At the end of January we decided to try and get something up and running. I don’t know what pushed us more, the “name” on the papers, the lack of support in the hospital or the taboo that stillbirth is here in Spain. People just don’t want to know. So Umamanita came to life, to help, to make changes and to make people more aware.

So far it looks like the registry law might be changed some time in the next year. Our idea is to try and achieve a common protocol in all hospitals, not in just a few innovative ones, and most of all to make Spanish parents feel that there is help here for them. At the moment the site is only in Spanish, hopefully in the future we will translate it into English.

Kind regards

Jillian & Juan