AKRON, Ohio — According to the CDC, stillbirth is when a baby dies in the womb after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Stillbirths affect about one in 160 pregnancies each year, meaning about 24,000 babies are stillborn in the United States annually.
Megan and Anthony Gargano lived through this heartbreaking experience nearly three years ago.
They lost their unborn baby girl just days before her due date.
“We just started to notice some decreased movement with Luna,” Megan said. “I decided to go to my OB-GYN and just have them just check it out and they were having a hard time finding the heartbeat.”
They went to labor and delivery at Cleveland Clinic Akron General.
“It was just like any other delivery other than she came out and wasn’t with us anymore,” Anthony said.
Dr. Jennifer Savitski, chair of the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Cleveland Clinic Akron General, explained that they see a few stillbirths per month.
“You can imagine that nobody is prepared for losing a child and everyone during pregnancy is typically anticipating the birth and bringing home the baby,” Savitski said. “When a family is faced with the loss of a baby, we want to make sure they have time to form whatever memories they want to form or spend that grieving process with their baby.”
The Garganos, along with Cleveland Clinic Akron General, partnered up to create The Butterfly Suite, a space where grieving parents can spend time with the child they’ve lost to form memories.
The suite is in a separate area from the labor and delivery ward.
“One of the things we felt would be really great was to bring in some more memory building areas for families when they have a loss,” Megan said. “I think one of those things that we talked about after the loss of Luna was you lose a lifetime of opportunities to build those memories with your child.”
The couple thought of everything they could to help grieving parents spend time with the baby.
The suite is equipped with a large medical bed, a rocking chair, books, a speaker, a baby bath, a stocked fridge, clothing for the baby and quilts families can take home.
“[The] larger size bed is important because one of the things that’s really hard after a loss is the fact that typically your spouse or partner can’t fit in the bed with you, or family members,” Megan said. “You really do a lot of times need that comfort of having a partner there.”
They also equipped it with medical necessities, including a cooling unit placed in a bassinet that allows parents more time with their child.
“We wanted to create a smaller, simplistic, home-like feel,” she said. “So families could feel like they have a space where they could put their babies in a bassinet, so we furnished that in here.”
They hope to help expand this concept to other hospitals locally and nationally.
