Installed on the first floor of a building in Bobigny, the Empathy 93 center is unique in France. Emanating from the maternal and child protection (PMI) of Seine-Saint-Denis, it receives families after the loss of a newborn or a child under 2 years old. “We work in pairs with all the families who are referred here by a network of partners, to provide them with medico-psychological support”explains the director and childcare worker, Alexia Hardy.
When it was created in 1982, the center was a response to the high rate of unexpected infant deaths in the department, where 3 out of 10 inhabitants live below the poverty line. For about thirty years, its missions have been extended to perinatal deaths, which designate children born dead and those who die within the first seven days. In 2021, 281 meetings were organised, for the follow-up of 79 families.
Some are content with one or two appointments, others continue to come years after the tragedy. “Our role is also to support families when a new pregnancy arrives, after the bereavement”complete the psychologists Françoise Laoufir and Lucineia Martins Dos Santos. “Mothers who have already lost a baby are systematically advised to be cared for in a level 3 maternity [disposant d’un service de réanimation néonatale]and we make the link with PMI midwives and health professionals »indicates Mme Hardy.
Many chronic diseases
According to the latest provisional figures available, Seine-Saint-Denis recorded 5 newborn deaths per 1,000 births in 2018, compared to 3.6 in mainland France. Over the past twenty years, the number of stillborn babies and those who died just after birth is 40% to 50% higher in the department than the French average.
A sad record which constitutes a “significant matter of concern” for the health authorities, underlines the regional health agency of Ile-de-France. In the early 2010s, alerted by a fairly strong increase in these deaths, it launched two surveys, one epidemiological, entrusted to a team from Inserm, the other socio-anthropological, led by the Samusocial Observatory. .
Several factors explaining this excess mortality had been identified: the high prevalence of chronic maternal diseases (gestational diabetes, obesity), the absence of social security coverage for the most precarious women, the language barrier, which complicates understanding of the health for allophone audiences, more numerous in Saint-Saint-Denis than elsewhere, and can lead to inadequate monitoring of pregnancy… So many factors that aggravate the state of health of the mother and jeopardize the life of the child. unborn child.
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