We are the stories, Alice: «Pertini’s mother could have been me»

Alice is 40 years old and in 2013 she became Viola’s mother. A long and difficult birth, which lasted a total of more than four days. «I was hospitalized on Saturday and my baby was born on Tuesday. I was given oxytocin because the birth didn’t start, but they kept me armored on a cot: I couldn’t move, get up, nothing. No music, massages, propaedeutic ball ». Alice has chosen to tell her story after the tragedy death of the newborn at the Sandro Pertini hospital in Rome to reiterate that too often mothers are left alone in the hours immediately following childbirth: the most difficult. Too often there is a lack of assistance, listening, care. “After a couple of hours I begged for an epidural and they made me feel wrong. I didn’t dilate so they practiced hand dilation which was excruciating suffering because in addition to the pain of the contractions, there was this too. If I complained I was told “what are you complaining about”, “did you know what you were getting into”». A voice, that of Alice, which joins the thousands of other women who in recent days have joined the pain of the mother of Sandro Pertini of Rome, repeating: “that mother could have been me”.

“When the baby was finally born, I went to my room and they left her there. She cried at night because she didn’t latch on to the breast, I have a flat nipple and because of this I was told that my daughter’s father hadn’t done his duty for her. She was my first child, I didn’t know what to do, I was just in a valley of tears ».

Alice was exhausted as was her mother admitted to the Pertini in Rome and who at Corriere della Sera she said: «That night 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 ».

Upon returning home, Alice collided with the difficulties of breastfeeding, almost imposed in her case. «I couldn’t breastfeed and they made me feel wrong until the pediatrician finally told me to switch to powdered milk. My daughter is fine, she is now 9 years old but I preferred not to have other children, the experience was too hard for me, to this day I still get goosebumps when I think about it. I understand that mother who lost her baby because she was tired. I too felt like her».

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