Broken hearts and empty bellies: Why are women who lost babies sharing a floor with new moms?

An empty silence filled the elevator on the most painful journey of Stacey Barbour's life that no amount of discussion or consoling could fill.

She knew exactly where she was going — the fifth floor of the Health Sciences Centre in St. John's — a place she once associated with new life, smiling faces and anxious parents awaiting their new babies.

Not anymore.

"I went there broken-hearted having to go up there. Empty belly, empty heart, empty arms," Barbour said in an interview, her infant daughter Rebecca perched on her lap. The three-month-old occasionally coos and laughs, breaking the tension as Barbour tells the story of her first daughter, Annabelle, who was delivered stillborn on Aug. 11, 2015.

Barbour is one of several women who spoke with CBC — both on and off the record — about their experiences with pregnancy and infant loss within the health care system in Newfoundland as well as in hospitals outside the province.

At the Health Sciences Centre in St. John's, women who have stillborn babies are taken to the fifth floor, where obstetricians and gynecologists work.

It's also where families of healthy, newborn babies are cared for.

"Often you're going up there because you had a baby. You go up in an elevator ride and it's either somebody congratulating you on the birth of your new child or you're being asked about your child," Barbour said.

"We're all going to the fifth floor for all the wrong reasons."

Barbour said the nurses and doctors were exceptional, even apologetic, about having to place her in the same vicinity as families awaiting — or celebrating — their new children.

Before she left hospital, broken and empty-handed, Barbour was told a professional would be by to help her with her own mental health.

That person, Barbour said, never showed, and she returned home to an empty nursery.

Sharing a room with a new mom

On June 5, 2014, Katelyn Short's dreams for her son Jacob were dashed when, at 20 weeks, she began getting labour pains.

For 24 hours, Short said, she was kept in a shared room with another woman who was waiting to go into labour and who would give birth to a healthy child.

Short delivered her son the next day. The clothing he was wrapped in and copy of his footprints are kept safe in a homemade shadowbox in Short's home.

"They actually took me then and moved me up off the floor and I shared a room with a woman who just had a baby," Short said.

"I was pretty devastated knowing that I was going to lose my son and I had to sit there and lay with a woman who just had her baby and hear the baby's cry."

Short said she left the hospital feeling ill-equipped to deal with the grief she felt.

"I actually went through the most depressing and mentally draining year of my life, and I had no idea who to reach out to or what to do afterwards."

'A memory I didn't need'

A year earlier, more than 2,000 kilometres away in Maine, Newfoundlander Vickie Morgan was fighting her own mental health battle.

At six and a half months, Morgan lost the baby's heartbeat, something she and her husband prepared for after testing revealed Joe had Trisomy 13 Syndrome, a chromosomal condition.

Searching for peace and quiet in short amount of time she had with him, Morgan remembers wandering into the hallway of the maternity ward cradling her son.

"I just remember being really worried about all the other women on the floor ... I was afraid that if anybody saw me out there with my dead child that they might be traumatized," Morgan said.

"I just remember the happiness right next door to where we were and feeling like I just shouldn't scare anybody. I don't know if they could have done anything different I just feel like it was a memory I didn't need."

Since delivering her stillborn daughter, Everlee Rose, in 2013, Rhonda McMeekin has been outspoken on a topic that's often shied away from.

While she didn't experience having to share a room with a new mother while mourning the loss of her child, she's heard stories from others who have.

"I think it really speaks to the fact that sometimes the health care system sees this only as a medical issue," McMeekin said.

"I guess, on paper it seems to be the best area for them because that's where the doctors and the nurses that deal with that area of the body, but it doesn't take into account at all the mental health issues that go along with the loss of a child."

McMeekin said even the women's health psychologist, who is responsible for dealing with women experiencing loss, is across from the case room.

"When you sit and wait for your appointment, you are sitting looking in through the window where families are waiting for babies to be born."

It's a balancing act

Within the last fiscal year, Eastern Health says there has been an average of one stillbirth a month at hospitals under its jurisdiction. That number includes mothers who have passed the 20-week mark, and does not include all pregnancy losses.

The health authority does offer mental health services for families who are experiencing loss, according to Arlene Scott, regional director of children and women's health.

Scott said the health authority gives the women as much privacy as they can, in a private or semi-private room which the family would have themselves.

Despite stories from women who say they shared rooms with new moms, Eastern Health said patients would not be placed in a room with other moms and newborns post-delivery.

She describes it as a bit of a balancing act, to provide the best care for physical and mental health with the resources the health authority has.

"When you consider that the physical process these families have just gone through, they have delivered a child … unfortunately the child had died but the families, the moms do need the specialized obstetrical care postpartum care that the nurses and physicians and other support staff on the floor can provide," Scott said.

"Unfortunately, you know it is the geographic footprint that we have here at the Health Sciences that, that particular floor is located there."

Scott said while it's difficult to hear these women had bad experiences, she said the health authority is committed to providing the best care.

"It's unfortunate that some families leave with misgivings with their experience here, but you know, we're very sorry for any anxiety that we may have caused these families," Scott said.

"We do express our deepest sympathies and condolences for parents and families who have gone through infant loss, as we know it's a very trying time but we are committed to excellence in care."

For Stacey Barbour, her first child is never far away from her thoughts, and Annabelle's memory is included in all big family celebrations.

"If anybody asks me, 'Is this your first', I always say no. I have three. I may have two at home. But I have three."

Further resources

Eastern Health urges the public to contact its Client Relations Line with any concerns about care: (709) 777-6500 or toll-free line at 1-877-444-1399.

Provincial Mental Health Crisis Line: 1-888-737-4668 or (709) 737-4668

Mental Health and Addictions Systems Navigator: 1-877-999-7589 or (709) 752-3916

CHANNAL Peer Support Warm Line: 1-855-753-2560 or (709) 753-2560

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