Donations of special cooling bassinets help stillborns' parents grieve, amid uptick in infant deaths

Natalia Lopez was six and a half months pregnant when a doctor confirmed she'd lost her baby.

"She told me there's no heartbeat," Natalia Lopez said.

She delivered Jose Angel at the hospital right into her husband's arms. 

"They were like, 'Put your hands out. It's gonna be like a little football," recalled her husband, Jose Lopez.

 "It was like this immediate, immediate burst of love," said Natalia Lopez.

How a cooling bassinet gave parents time to say goodbye  

The Fort Worth couple spent two days holding their firstborn and taking the only pictures they'd ever have of him. 

"He has curly hair just like his dad, and he's got my lips and my nose," said Natalia Lopez, looking at the pictures she keeps framed.

Their time together was precious to her, and it was possible, she knows, because of a CuddleCot, a special cooling bassinet that delays signs of decay. 

"With those two days we had the CuddleCot, we soaked in every inch of his body, his little toes," she said.

Infant mortality rises as bereavement care gaps remain  

As Texas, in recent years, has experienced an increase in its infant mortality rate, it has seen a growing interest in bereavement care for families. 

Many hospitals, though, still don't have cooling bassinets. 

"We were shocked when we realized not every hospital has a CuddleCot," said Natalia Lopez.

It's most often the families affected, families like Jose Angel's, who step up to help by fundraising for and donating these bassinets to hospitals.

"We've donated two so far. And we're looking for, choosing the third hospital," said Natalia Lopez.  

She worked with Ashlie's Embrace, an organization that matches donors to hospitals and facilitates those donations. Erin Maroon founded the non-profit after losing her own daughter ten years ago.

"There was so little done for us," she said. 

At the time, cooling bassinets were so new that few hospitals knew of them, much less had them.

Maroon's memories of her stillborn daughter, rosy and warm, are fogged by the exhaustion of her long labor.

"I held her for maybe 20, 25 minutes," she said. 

Shaken and worried she might drop her daughter, Maroon handed her off and fell asleep. By the time she woke, her daughter's body had already been removed from her room, and its appearance had changed dramatically.

"I have so many regrets. I didn't rock her. I didn't sing to her. I didn't… I didn't comb her hair," she said. 

Looking for help with her grief, she stumbled onto a news article.

From personal grief to a national mission  

"And it had referenced a CuddleCot and about how you get more time with the baby, and if this is an option for you, great, and I thought, 'Are you kidding me? We didn't get that!'"

Maroon, though, saw an opportunity to help other families. 

"We launched Ashlie's Embrace because I didn't want any other family to have to be as rushed as we were. Our original goal was, can we just get 10 of these things donated by Ashlie's first birthday?" she said.

The organization hit that goal and more, raising enough funds to donate 13 in their first year. Ten years later, they've donated nearly 400 CuddleCots to hospitals in all 50 states and the US territory of Guam. In Texas alone, where the organization has seen a big demand, it's donated 84.

Texas mandates bereavement care with Everly's Law  

The state last year became the first to mandate maternity hospitals have a cooling bassinet and train staff in bereavement care, with the passage of Everly's Law.

It prompted Ashlie's Embrace to launch a campaign in Texas to raise funds for the needed bassinets and allow the $5 million the state set aside to go even farther. 

"That's got to cover a lot of things. It's got to cover the support, the training, the education," said Maroon.

A survey of Texas hospitals, she said, showed only about half have the bassinets, which retail at about $3,000 a piece. Helping place bassinets in hospitals, though, has helped Natalia Lopez heal and find hope once again.

Her first donation, at the hospital where she delivered Jose Angel, occurred the day before she gave birth to his little brother.

"Eventually you'll get to a place where you want to give back," she said.  "What we learned is there is a way to turn mourning back into joy."