ASHLAND — Erin Maroon carried Ashlie to full term. It was a near-perfect pregnancy, right up until the final ultrasound.
“They told us that morning that she was fine, and then 10 hours later I felt a huge kick, and that was it,” Maroon said.
She rushed to the hospital, where she learned the devastating news that her baby had died.
“It started a whirlwind of chaos, and everything happened so fast,” Maroon said.
She went through 24 hours of labor, and then, still tired and confused, she had less than an hour with the stillborn baby.
“The nurses said you can keep her as long as you want, but we didn’t know what that meant, and so I held her for less than an hour total, then gave her back and never saw her again,” Maroon said.
“It all happened so fast… I didn’t unswaddle her. I didn’t change her diaper. I didn’t see her feet. I didn’t see her legs. Nothing. And that was the last time I saw her.”
Headed home from the hospital a couple days later, Maroon came across an article online that mentioned CuddleCot, a cooling system designed to allow families more time to hold, sing to or photograph a baby lost in childbirth.
“I was mad. I was really mad that we didn’t have that option, so I decided right then and there that we were going to change it for other people,” Maroon said.
Maroon started a non-profit organization called Ashlie’s Embrace to make CuddleCots available in medical facilities in the United States. Since launching in 2015, the organization has given 21 of the devices to hospitals throughout the country, starting mostly in Ohio where the organization is based.
Together with Creston-based, non-profit Forget-Me-Not Baskets, Ashlie’s Embrace donated a CuddleCot to University Hospitals Samaritan Medical Center Birthing and Women’s Unit Wednesday. The unit and its accessories cost about $3,500.
Forget-Me-Not’s main function is to supply the Ashland hospital and four other area hospitals with bereavement baskets for families who experience loss during delivery, but Forget-Me-Not founder Sara Ringle recently began partnering with Ashlie’s Embrace to get cots for the five hospitals with whom she works.
The Ashland cot is dedicated in memory of Lily Shirley, who was delivered stillborn in Akron in 2016.
Lily’s mother, Jesy Boales of Ashland, still feels the loss of her little girl who would be two this year. She channels her grief into her work as an active volunteer, fundraiser and donor for Forget-Me-Not Baskets.
Boales said she wishes she had had access to a CuddleCot.
“We had Lily for about half an hour. That was it. She was gone… they took her picture and sent us home with an envelope and a bear. So this is really important to me… I don’t want other moms to go through that,” Boales said.
The CuddleCot can give families up to 96 hours with their babies until they are ready to say goodbye.
The system includes a cooling device with hoses that connect to a bag called a bladder. Filled with cold water and a biocide to kill bacteria, the bladder stays with the baby and can be used in a bassinet or crib or held with the baby in a family member’s arms. The system also comes with a reusable plastic bassinet and insulating pads.
Staff at Samaritan said the Forget-Me-Not baskets have meant a lot to grieving patients, and they expect the CuddleCot will be equally appreciated.
“We are very fortunate to have the support of the Forget-Me-Not Corporation to help us support our patients during times when they’re grieving,” said nurse manager Shannon Graves.
Graves said the hospital recently had a family who would have benefited greatly from the CuddleCot.
“It would have been fantastic for that family because they spent so much time with the newborn before they went home, and we do have things in place we can do, but this will better help us support those families.”
