Children are loved the same whether they are biological or not. But it is also true that when a mother takes it within nine months and gives birth, she accumulates memories of the baby’s life from the very first ultrasound plus the hospital bracelet, thousands of newborn photos, the cord clamp … At least I kept them as a treasure, a part of his life.
In the case of children who do not go with their parents at birth, their experience is different, since they lose the tangible memory of that beginning of their life. To avoid this, the Newborn Unit of the Pediatrics Service of the Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valencia has started the humanization project “My first days”: it compiles a series of objects and photographs of the baby’s first days to deliver in a box to the families foster care or adoption.
Photos and objects that tell a story
Experts say that parents have to explain to their children that they are adopted, since they have the right to know how they became so loved. Ideally, they should understand it as something natural. There are specific stories that help explain the process. From now on, the parents of children born in the Hospital Clínico de Valencia have another beautiful tool to help the little ones understand their history: a box that gathers the objects and memories of the first days of life of the children who are born. in the center and that they go with a foster or adoption family.
Pilar Bernabeu, a nurse at the Neonatal Center and one of the promoters of the project, explains that this humanization plan consists of the umbilical cord clamp, the hat with which the baby goes up to the room from the delivery room, a small octopus woven manually by volunteers, the pacifier and a card with the baby’s footprint.
In addition, a pendrive is included with photos taken by the nurses of the baby’s first days : the moment he arrives at the unit, the first bottle, the first bath, relaxed in the crib or on the arm of one of them … Those first few times they fill a memory gap that their parents can’t fill.
“Babies who are born at term only spend a few days in the hospital and when they get home they will begin to generate memories with their foster family. But premature babies spend months in the Neonatal Center, which is why it is essential to document these moments because it is a more special situation. In both cases we consider it necessary to have memories of those first days of life “.
He adds that it is in these cases, when his initiative has a greater weight, since when the babies leave with their respective foster or adoption families a few months have already passed:
“Our role, both in this case and when they are only a few days, is to save these memories and provide them to their families when they go home. Afterwards, each family is free to use it or not.”
Via | Valencian government
Photos | iStock
In Babies and More | Everything you need to know about adoption in Spain and abroad: a mother of three adopted children tells us about it, The emotional video of a mother to her baby, in which she explains her reasons for giving him up for adoption
