What is the “hospitalization syndrome” that some babies may suffer from at birth?

This is a heartbreaking article. The Figaro journalist Agnès Leclair published, on 2 August, the deciphering of a little-known phenomenon: that of children with severe depressive syndrome following their hospitalization for many months in hospital, due to lack of place in the nursery.

Newborns in need of psychic and emotional “resuscitation”

As we read in the article by Agnès Leclair, many newborns after birth have to spend weeks or even months in hospital, waiting to be admitted to an overcrowded asylum where there is a lack of staff. . It is a reality in France, according to the departments the services are saturated.

Social assistance for children (ASE) does not have the necessary means to accommodate all abandoned babies in France and some very young children have to remain in the hospitals where they were born, waiting to be admitted.

Some children may, in some cases, leave with their parents, but being the same at times in great psychological difficulty (childbirth following denial of pregnancy, violence in the family, etc.), the return home can take some time. , or not take place at all.

But even if these children aren’t mistreated in hospitals, they could be victims of a common postwar syndrome. that of hospitality.

As explained in Figaro’s article, the hospitalization syndrome exists “a form of depression linked to emotional deprivation and the absence of an attachment figure in the context of a long hospital stay or placement”

This particular form of depression was first described by psychiatrist René Spitz in 1946.

In the article, child psychiatrist Daniel Rousseau provides details on the symptoms of these children who “need intense psychic, emotional and sometimes medical ‘resuscitation” after being abandoned:

“They often have weight delays, untreated health problems, multiple deficiencies. Some have experienced terrible emotional deprivation. Their needs are enormous. These are children who can start throwing up when you walk away from them, for example. There are others that we do not hear, who do not ask for bottles, do not cry, who have let themselves go on a relational level. “

Daniel Rousseau for Le Figaro

For more information on the tensions of existing nursery places, which vary between French departments, you can read Agnès Leclair’s full article in Le Figaro.

Photo credit image of one: nenovbrothers