The nurse who happened to enter Rivka Jakubowicz's room, a moment after giving birth to a dead fetus, wished her "good luck" and took objects out of the drawer, with the same dead fetus lying just above her.
The doctor who examined Tal Dbesh also told her, "In your place I would say thank you for the two girls I already have at home," adding that perhaps the fetus died because of a drug she took during pregnancy;
And Ivy Moore Proling's midwife told her that she too had a quiet birth, and that since then she "does not take such births."
Women who go through a quiet birth, such that in the end we do not hear the baby crying but the crying of the mother who is forced to collect the fragments of her body and soul after the death of the fetus, leave the delivery room with a broken heart and empty hands.
In recent weeks we have heard testimonies from dozens of women who went through a quiet birth and received abusive treatment at the hospital or HMO where they were treated.
They described chilling, really annoying incidents that seemed to have been avoided with little attention from the staff.
"We were in shock"
"When my husband asked the doctor what happened to the fetus, she said, 'It will be easier to show you no pulse, than to explain to you why there is no pulse,'" says Rebecca, who gave birth in Soroka a year ago. "Here, it's the heart. Here, it does not move. Here, there is no pulse." Without any drop of empathy. "
HMO representatives who called Tal Dbesh, after undergoing a quiet birth in July 2020, also wished her good luck - without realizing that the fetus did not survive the birth.
Michal Arbel, Photo: Efrat Eshel
"The girl on the line was full of joy and best wishes, and I replied, 'No, not congratulations. I gave birth to a dead baby.' "I said, 'No, I had a quiet birth,' and I think we were both in shock."
Traumatic event
Michal Arbel, who gave birth a year ago at Ichilov Hospital, also tells a similar story.
"I had one and only request: to see my baby and fall asleep, and the staff flowed with me about it," she recalls, "the birth lengthened, and the next day I was transferred to a quiet delivery room. Friends who came to be with me let me eat something small. "Something small here, she was angry and was very unpleasant to me."
And Ivy, for her part, shares: "After the birth, when they had to evacuate the room and clean it, I was taken to the maternity ward, and I screamed in tears that they would not leave me there," says Ivy, A baby in his arms? It was traumatic. "
Tal Dbesh, Photo: Efrat Eshel
In the responses of the hospitals to which the women refer, they all indicated that they run silent maternity programs, and that the issue is being addressed sensitively.
But the testimonies of the women, which will be published tomorrow in "Shishvat", show that despite the awareness and goodwill, care is still required so as not to continue to harm the injured souls in any case.
"It's not an ordinary death that has seven," Ivy adds, "there is no acceptable way to deal with such a loss. The fact that only I felt the baby in my womb does not mean that I should not be mourning it, and that it is only mine. It is forbidden to 'flip' it with Statements like 'It will pass and you will have more children' ".
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