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The toughest experiences are the ones that unite the most. You can ask Mireia Navarro, Manu Mestre, and Victòria Peñafiel, who three years ago decided to capture with their lenses unrepeatable moments of the fight for life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU) of Vall d'Hebron and Can Ruti hospitals and Clínica Dexeus. "It all started from an initial conversation with Victòria, as we both knew each other and had worked on solidarity projects before. After going through similar situations with our children, we realized that we didn't have photos of those difficult moments," explains Mireia. Together they promoted the Dits Petits association, dedicated to documenting these complicated and special moments for families. Thus, they set to work so that, voluntarily, families who spend long stays in the ICU or experience postpartum with anguish have a positive memory of that time.
Dits Petits is currently made up of about twenty volunteer photographers who travel to different Catalan hospitals, with which they have agreements, to capture unrepeatable moments between families and newborns who are in such a special place as intensive care units. "We know that these snapshots have a therapeutic power and can help people going through such a difficult time," assures Victòria. The association currently offers its free services in three hospitals in the province of Barcelona but has just signed an agreement with the ICS that will allow them to extend their work throughout Catalonia.
For the parents of children admitted to the clinic, it is a way to have memories of moments when the last thing one thinks about is taking photographs. Davínia, a resident of Sant Vicenç dels Horts, corroborates this. Two years ago, she had Joel at 30 weeks of pregnancy at Vall d'Hebron, after almost two months of bed rest due to the rupture of the embryonic sac. "When the first days of this new life are so difficult, no one thinks about the memory and that what they are experiencing they will want to share with the child when he grows up," she explains. While in the clinic room, she received a paper that read: "You take care of the child, and we'll take care of the photos." And so she did. She let Mireia and her camera into her daily life, which unfolded between hospital corridors and rooms, without seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. "It's a moment when you see your child full of wires and tubes and you don't think it's a moment to take photos of him. We had photos taken with our cell phones but they were very intimate, just for us," explains Davínia, still moved, recalling such delicate moments. "We experienced the idea of a professional photographer portraying us naturally. Thus, we managed to record the moment when Lucía, my eldest daughter, 4 years old, entered the ICU and held her little brother's hand for the first time. If it weren't for Mireia, we wouldn't have such a vivid memory." These photos were a channel to free herself from the suffocation and all the tension and fear she experienced in the hospital. After some time, when she looks at the photos, she remembers that "what you feel is that it was hard, they were moments of screaming, of rage, of helplessness and pain, but you see the result and you are proud of how Joel fought and how we overcame it," this mother, now happy, recalls.
It is, however, an experience that allows for an enrichment of both involved parties. For Manu, another of the project's photographers, this work provides him "above all, experience, because it is very enriching to see people so grateful." Part of the appeal of these photographs is that they are very intimate, of physical contact between the baby and the parents, skin to skin. "We like it more when we can do a follow-up and document the baby's evolution because we also establish a closer bond with the parents and when they return home the moment is very beautiful," says Mireia, who vividly remembers the case of Joel, whom she photographed from his first days.
Unfortunately, there are also children who do not survive. "We photograph them anyway, and in these cases, the photos take on another value, even greater, because they often help family members overcome grief," adds the Dits Petits photographer.
If a family wants to have a photographic follow-up of their baby from their premature birth until the child goes home, they can contact the hospital and they will communicate with this association. Dits Petits already has a franchise in Galicia called Dediñas, which has a group of photographers dedicated to capturing moments of beauty in moments of anguish.
CROCHET OCTOPUSES FOR PREMATURE BABIES Amidst premature babies surrounded by cables and machines, we often find crochet octopuses, with large heads and eight small legs, whose vibrant colors break the grayness of the moment. They can be found in most Catalan hospitals with neonatology units and are made by different guardian angels, members of non-profit associations and entities or individuals who dedicate their time to improving the lives of the little ones.
On the 'Popets Solidaris' website, there are detailed instructions on the pattern to follow to create the doll, the types of yarn to be used, and the different types of hypoallergenic synthetic filling for the animal's head.
This solidarity initiative has served to discover that these eight-legged dolls help the development of children born before 37 weeks. It is an idea that originated in Denmark in 2013 and has been exported throughout Europe.