She heard her stillborns 'cry in the night'

January 19, 2003
BY JIM RITTER - HEALTH REPORTER

Her doctor said everything was fine, but Mary Geitz sensed something had gone terribly wrong with her second pregnancy.
The baby would go a day or two without kicking, and when it stopped all movement, Geitz had an ultrasound. The test found no heartbeat. Twenty-one weeks into her pregnancy, Geitz's baby, Angel, had died. Her doctor scheduled Geitz for an induced labor the next day.

During the agonizing night before the delivery, Geitz was unable to sleep. She recalls looking at her tummy and saying, "Mommy's sorry she could not save you.''

Nor could Geitz save four subsequent stillborn babies, Kevin-Heaven, Emily, Robert and Nicholas. Although Geitz and her husband, Jeff, have four healthy children, her last three pregnancies ended in stillbirths. After her last pregnancy, Geitz said she fell "into the pit of depression with nowhere to turn.''

So Geitz started a support group, Holding our Angels Near and Dear, or HAND. She helped a local hospital become more sensitive to grieving parents. She persuaded her state representative to introduce a bill that would provide birth certificates for stillborns. And she is lobbying for more research on stillbirths and a national database for stillborn autopsies.

Geitz is among the growing number of advocates who are demanding that doctors, hospitals, researchers and even baby-book authors devote as much attention to stillbirths as they do to sudden infant death syndrome, which kills only about one-tenth as many babies.
"There is a shroud of silence and shame around this,'' Geitz said.

A stillbirth is defined as a baby born dead of natural causes after 20 or more weeks of pregnancy. (Before 20 weeks is a miscarriage.) Although Geitz's stillbirths occurred between the 20th and 24th weeks, most stillbirths happen later in the pregnancy.
About one in 115 births is a stillbirth. Each year in the United States, about 25,000 babies--68 every day--are born dead, according to the University of Wisconsin's Stillbirth Service Program.

Stillbirths can be caused by birth defects, problems with the placenta and umbilical cord that cut off blood, oxygen and nutrients to the baby or, less common, medical conditions in the mother such as diabetes or high blood pressure.
But in at least half of all cases, there's no known cause. Geitz doesn't know what caused any of her five stillbirths, even though she had autopsies and genetic studies on two of her babies.

When a mother doesn't know the cause, she wonders if it was somehow her fault. "You think, maybe I got pregnant too soon. Maybe I should have given it more time. Maybe this, maybe that,'' Geitz said.

Her babies are buried at Queen of Heaven Cemetery, which has a section for stillborns. She puts up decorations on holidays and tends a small garden on Sundays during the summer. Nevertheless, she declined to be photographed next to the five markers because she does not want to be seen as a victim. "I've never played the sympathy card,'' she said.

HAND meets monthly in Roselle, where Geitz lives, and in Wheaton. Geitz also started a chapter of the MISS Foundation, a national support group for families that have lost a baby or young child. In four years, HAND has helped more than 400 families.
"She has this incredible passion to make a difference for parents who are experiencing a loss so they don't have to go through it alone,'' said Theresa Salgado, a nurse at Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village.

Geitz helped Alexian become more sensitive to grieving parents. Hospitals once whisked stillborns away. Now Alexian and many other hospitals encourage parents to hold their baby. Some parents decline, some hold their babies for a few minutes, and some hold them for hours, Salgado said.

Alexian nurses wrap stillborn babies in gowns, bonnets and blankets, which are given to the parents, along with small stuffed animals. With parents' permission, the hospital also photographs the baby. Some parents decline to take the pictures home but change their mind and retrieve the photos a year or two later. After a mother goes home, the hospital follows up with a phone call and recommends HAND.

HAND helps parents cope with the physical and emotional trauma of losing a baby. The mother's breasts are painfully engorged with milk, but she has no baby to nurse. The sudden change of hormones following birth can cause postpartum depression, made worse by the baby's death.

After her stillbirths, Geitz thought she could hear her baby cry in the night. Other mothers have told her they also have heard phantom cries. It makes them wonder if they're losing their minds, she said.
Despite all the pain, Geitz is thankful for her stillborn babies.

"I feel very blessed they were in my life, even for as short a time as it was,'' she said.

Birth certificates for stillborns? Idea controversial

Parents of a 1-pound premature infant who dies moments after birth receive a birth certificate.
But parents of an 8-pound, full-term baby who dies a few minutes before delivery receive only a fetal death certificate.
A bill pending in the state Legislature would enable parents of stillborns to receive birth certificates. Since 2001, similar bills have passed in Arizona, Indiana, Utah and Massachusetts, and have been introduced in several other states.

"Women who endure the experience of stillbirth must still go through childbirth," said Joanne Cacciatore of the MISS Foundation, which proposed the Arizona bill, the first to pass. "They are emotionally invested in their babies, and that does not change when a baby is stillborn. They are still mothers."

The Illinois bill was proposed by the HAND support group and is sponsored by state Rep. Kay Wojcik (R-Schaumburg).
In California however, a birth certificate bill stalled after opposition from the state chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. In a letter to the sponsor, the obstetricans group's lobbyist, Joan Hall, wrote: "Use of the term 'certificate of birth' indicates a live birth. A stillbirth is not a live birth."

A piece of paper cannot "validate a woman's motherhood," Hall wrote. The certificate also would duplicate statistical information collected for fetal death certificates.

The obstetricans group also said the bill would require reporting abortions occurring after the 20th week of pregnancy, violating a woman's right to privacy.

Cacciatore said such fears are unfounded because the birth certificates would apply only to stillbirths, which are different from abortions.

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