A Belgian mother lost her son when she was 8 months pregnant because of the beatings suffered by her ex-boyfriend. This violence resulted in a major hemorrhage, the young woman only discovered too late.
Tiffanie, a mother of 6, lost her sixth baby at 8 months pregnant. A tragic event and not at all natural since the pregnancy was interrupted because of the beatings of her ex-companion, father of the baby and two other of her children.
After she had managed to leave him and had been living in a new apartment for a month, she suffered from abdominal pain and called the emergency room on September 4, 2018. She will be released from the hospital without her child.
In serious condition
Once at the hospital, the doctors detect the problem almost immediately and Tiffanie will have to have a Caesarean section. Only, on the baby side, no more heartbeats are detected. After the operation, doctors discovered that the infant died in utero at 33 weeks gestation.
Post-mortem examinations and autopsies show that the mother suffered from a significant hemorrhage in the spleen, most certainly due to the blows of her ex in the abdomen. This hemorrhage took place 4 weeks before his call for help. Doctors say the baby died of fetal suffocation from the heavy blood loss.
Justice wants the accused to be referred to the Criminal Court not only for assault and battery and psychological pressure, but also for having caused by willful beatings a major internal wound on a pregnant person, therefore in a vulnerable situation. The young mother's ex-companion, on the other hand, cannot be accused of infanticide because the child was not yet born. In the law, it is specified that the baby must be "alive at birth, and either killed at or shortly after being born" before it can be called infanticide. The court will decide on the referral of the accused to the Tribunal on April 20.
Tiffanie's words
Tiffanie, devastated, does not give up and wants to do justice to her son, and to herself. Very courageous, she opens up about what she lived: “It started to escalate after the twins were born. He liked to pull me by the hair, to shake me and to throw me on the furniture. At first it was mostly slaps. We don't realize when we live it. His violence was nothing compared to his psychological pressure. We become someone else, we lie to everyone and especially to ourselves ". Even though her son died in her womb, she counts him among her children. She decided to call him Lounes.
“I had 6 children, it is important for me to count Lounes. I would like to tell him that I am so sorry that I did not protect him and that I will find him with his head held high at the end of the road. That I wore it every second of her life and will love her every second of mine. Let him not imagine how much I love him and how much I miss him … That his siblings miss him and his big sister sleeps with her picture under her pillow ", says Tiffanie. We wish this mom a lot of courage, and hope with all our hearts that justice will be done.