The past came in Madrid the book "The forgotten voices" that we recently recommended. Your reading has impacted me and I have wanted interview one of its authors, the psychologist Mónica Álvarez, to know better the reasons that led them to write it.
How did you meet the authors?
We are all members of Childbirth is ours, association in which we have been a few years. Almost 8 M. Angels Claramunt and I founded the forum Overcoming an abortion, online community for fathers and mothers who have suffered some kind of loss in pregnancy or in the perinatal period. Then Cristina Silvente joined us who for years has been complicit in the knowledge we were acquiring through the mothers of the forum. Finally, last year we “signed” Dr. Laura G. Carrascosa, who had also been investigating on her own for some time and whose scientific knowledge has been fundamental to corroborate what we empirically had been seeing for so long..
Does this book come to fill a gap?
There is a great lack of information regarding the issue of losses in our society.
Until recently there was no interest, pregnancy losses were taboo. It seemed that if we didn't talk about it it was more likely not to happen. But the reality is not like that, the reality is that losses are something everyday, which happens, unfortunately, in the lives of many people.
Right now, we have gone from a general disinterest to a real need in society to know, know, learn about what happens when an abortion occurs, what is the best way to treat it (physically and emotionally), what needs to be done to overcome the trance in the best possible way and take advantage to grow, evolve and reinvent yourself. Likewise, people who have not gone through an early gestational loss (also if it is a perinatal loss) want to learn to help the people around them in case of passing it and not incurring the mistakes that have been made so far , with the typical phrases that are said with all the good intention of the world, but that do so much damage to those who receive them. All this information so necessary for the person on foot, for health professionals, for professionals who are dedicated to mental health and emotional accompaniment (psychologists, therapists, psychiatrists, doulas ...) is gathered in this book, a true jewel for this moment of psycho-emotional and spiritual evolution in which our society is located.
How did you come up with writing on this subject?
After closing the manuscript of "The empty cradle" we were aware of all the issues that remained in the inkwell. In fact, to write everything we would like to say we would need to make an encyclopedia in eight volumes, and we would still leave information.
Even since we closed the manuscript of "The Forgotten Voices", new questions have emerged and we have already been able to answer them, so we already have material to continue writing, if the occasion arises.
Is it a topic that will never be talked about enough?
In the forum Overcoming an abortion, mothers who continue to come in every day and share their experiences, their deep pains is a magical well that inspires us every day and from which we continue to learn. Now it is also not the only place where you can learn. The consultations of perinatal psychologists are increasingly filled with mothers and fathers who went through a loss and ask for help to solve that chapter of their lives and move on.
That is new?
This is really good; Only a couple of years ago this did not happen. The woman was left alone with her pain at home because in many cases not even her husband understood her.
Almost two years ago we decided to start shaping this project because we were looking forward to the fact that perinatal deaths were already taken into account and the necessary importance was given to caring for parents in the hospital, and in fact, every time in more hospitals are implementing protocols for attention to perinatal death.
Is the sensitivity to this topic changing so much?
Even from the Ministry of Health, a collaboration was requested between several associations (Childbirth is ours and Uma Manita, also participating as partners of the first) to edit the 1st Perinatal Death Care Guide as a basis to be taken into account by different hospitals for the proper care of mothers and dead babies. We were very happy with this great achievement, that when we wrote "The empty cradle" was a dream, but we saw at the same time that there was still a way to go and issues to continue raising awareness in society such as early gestational losses. At that time they were still a taboo. Once a mother made a difference that she had given birth to a baby with human form, while the other was "an abortion."
Is an abortion different from giving birth to a fetus with human form?
In "The empty cradle" it was explained that an abortion is not "the fruit, what the mother stops" but the process from when the pregnancy is interrupted until the fetal expulsion is triggered, showing that giving birth to an embryo is no less Than giving birth to a baby of more weeks.
In "The forgotten voices" we wanted not only to see the fact of having a natural abortion as normal, but that mothers could see with tenderness their small embryos with embryonic form through which all the animals of creation, or small ones pass fetuses that look like sleeping miniature dolls. Recently a mother told us great tenderness that caused her to see the placid smile that her little one had a few centimeters after giving birth. When the pain of loss subsides over time, that precious memory will be stored in your memory as a great treasure. How many women can say the same?
How is the treatment in hospitals in the case of early gestational losses?
Every day we see that there has to be a great change of perspective in hospitals, because the old ways of treating patients, full of paternalism and superiority, no longer serve us. With the treatment of abortions occurs as with term deliveries: there are a number of protocols that have already been demonstrated in many cases that scientific evidence throws them to the ground and that, however, are still used because it is more comfortable for professionals , because the wave of changes has not arrived at that hospital, because changing external protocols would also imply profound changes in the way of seeing the life (and patients) of the many professionals that populate our hospitals. I think we are going in the right direction, but there is still much to do. In the case of early losses, things have been written in a book that did not appear anywhere until now. The experience we had of these years with the mothers of Overcoming an abortion as to what is the best way to treat the physiological part of the loss physically and emotionally (the expectant treatment of the abortion), has been corroborated by the scientific evidence demonstrated in the many scientific studies provided by Dr. Laura G. Carrascosa, which were so lacking. Now it will be necessary for this book to reach the right people so that these in the treatment of natural abortion changes are implemented in hospitals. But this is another story that is also being written little by little.
The truth is that this interview has overcome the initial theme and, in addition to deepening "The forgotten voices", we are discovering a whole emotional world often denied and hidden. We will extend in greater depth in a second installment of this interview with psychologist Mónica Álvarez.
