Sentara Obici Hospital dedicated a new Butterfly Room inside its Family Maternity Center on Tuesday, converting a space into a private retreat where families can grieve the loss of an infant. The room includes a specially made bassinette that circulates cool air around a baby's body, giving parents more time to say goodbye before having to leave the hospital.
A Gift Born From Personal Loss
The $35,000 gift behind the new room came from Kennedy's Angel Gowns, a local nonprofit, according to WTKR. The organization was founded by Heather and Demitri Wilson after they lost their firstborn daughter, Kennedy Milan Wilson, who was stillborn in August 2009, according to Kennedy's Angel Gowns. Volunteers with the nonprofit sew burial gowns and sailor suits from donated wedding dresses and other fine materials, then give the garments to grieving families on request, per the station's report.
The Butterfly Room is designed as a quiet, private space where families can spend time with their baby away from the bustle of a busy maternity unit. The cooling bassinette at its center allows families to spend more time with their child, hospital staff say, the same mechanism that has anchored similar rooms across the region for years.
Part Of A Years-Long Regional Effort
Sentara Obici's new room follows a longer pattern across the Sentara Health system. Sentara Norfolk General Hospital opened the system's first Butterfly Room in August 2019, a 12-foot by 10-foot suite also funded by a $50,000 gift from Kennedy's Angel Gowns, according to the nonprofit's project page. That Norfolk suite was designed as the state's first dedicated hospital room of its kind for grieving parents, as reported by WVEC.
Equipment gaps at Obici had previously been filled by grassroots community effort. A local mother donated a CuddleCot cooling unit to the hospital after her daughter was stillborn there in November 2019, per CuddleCot's account of the donation — before that gift, the hospital had shared a single cooling unit among multiple bereaved mothers. The trend has continued system-wide since; Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center became the eighth Sentara hospital to receive a cooling cradle from Kennedy's Angel Gowns in July 2024, according to Prince William Living. Those cradles are built to preserve an infant's physical appearance so families are not rushed during final goodbyes, the outlet noted.
Stillbirth Rates And Statewide Support
The need for these spaces is rooted in sobering numbers. A Virginia Department of Health fact sheet, citing CDC sources from 2024, says roughly 1 in 175 U.S. pregnancies ends in stillbirth each year, affecting about 21,000 pregnancies nationally, with non-Hispanic Black women experiencing stillbirth at roughly double the rate of White women.
The state health department operates a dedicated Pregnancy Loss Initiative that works with community nonprofits, including Kennedy's Angel Gowns, to expand access to counseling and bereavement support statewide, as reported by WHRO. The nonprofit's reach has also extended into national policy conversations; Kennedy's Angel Gowns participated in the White House Roundtable for Black Women's Maternal Health in 2021 and was awarded a grant to expand a community doula program with HealthConnect One, according to the organization's media page.
Inside Sentara Obici's Maternity Unit
Sentara Obici Hospital is a 175-bed facility in Suffolk that serves Western Tidewater residents, according to Sentara Health. The hospital's bereavement program now includes dedicated support for grieving families alongside the new room, the station reported.
A bereavement coordinator said the room gives grieving parents time with their baby, according to WVEC's reporting on the Norfolk suite.
