Rome, the mother of the newborn who died at Pertini: “I was exhausted and I collapsed that night”

Laura (the name is fictitious) and her partner are waiting for the truth. They want clarification on the death of their child, born in the Sandro Pertini hospital in Rome and died three days later. The judiciary and the police are investigating to identify the possible responsibilities of the health facility. According to the first reconstructions, the little one would have died suffocated by his mother, who fell asleep with him after breastfeeding him and with her weight he would have ended up preventing him from breathing.

That night, explains the 29-year-old al Courier, «I was still very tired, rather tried by the birth, after 17 hours of labor. I had entered the hospital the previous day, we had chosen the Pertini because I was fond of this place since I was born there too. For two nights, the one after giving birth and the next, I managed, with difficulty, to keep the baby close to me. I was upset, I asked the nurses for help, asking them if they could take it at least for a while, however I was always answered that it was not possible to take it to the nursery. And the same happened on Saturday night. In fact, I felt worse than the previous days. I asked again to take the baby, they didn’t. Two nights I resisted, the last one I was really tired. “It is not possible”, he was told me once again ».

Little Carlo Mattia was “in full health”, he weighed almost 3.4 kilos. “The nurses gave me some guidance on how to get on the bed to breastfeed him, but apart from the tiredness I always had an IV attached to his arm. I was moving with difficulty. And then that night I collapsed, I just couldn’t do it. I haven’t remembered anything since then.”

Then, during the night, Laura is woken up by the nurses: the baby was no longer beside her. “Without saying a word to me, they made me get up and took me to a nearby room: there they told me that the baby was dead. I don’t remember that a psychologist was present, nor that they gave me a more in-depth explanation. They certainly didn’t tell me how it happened. At that point I didn’t understand anything anymore, everything collapsed on me. Maybe I even passed out.” Two days later, on January 10, the woman signed her resignation and returned home.

She and her partner have not been heard by prosecutors and have not yet filed a complaint. The lawyer assisting them, Alessandro Palombi, explains that «in reality the investigation was officially launched. We have the utmost confidence in the work of the magistrates». The prosecutor’s office has opened a file against unknown persons for manslaughter, and the medical records of the child and the mother have been acquired, as well as the duty rosters of doctors and nurses in the obstetrics department from 4 to 8 January last.

The woman also turned out negative drug tests, which had been requested by health professionals to try to understand why the woman seemed trapped in an unnatural sleep from which she could not wake up. That deep sleep, therefore, was only due to the tiredness of childbirth.

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