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Editors note: This story deals with material that may pose emotional difficulty for some readers.
The baby weighed 7 pounds at the time of birth, carried to 38 weeks by her mother, a south Lafourche woman who said she did not know she was pregnant.
The mother did not give the still-born infant a name. She did not wish to hold or see the child, leaving the hospital as soon as possible.
And so according to protocols and the law, the infant became the responsibility of Lafourche Parish Coroner John King.
As with any other body in its custody, that of the baby was brought to the parish morgue.
“Still-borns are not reportable to us except when they are not claimed for burial or cremation,” said Mark Goldman, King’s chief investigator. “If the body is not claimed the coroner’s office has jurisdiction. We have been getting more cases like this every year.”
Haunted by the plaintive tragedy of an infant without a family to mourn, Goldman put his thinking cap on.
“I don’t like the idea of giving a baby a pauper burial,” Goldman explained, recounting how he remembered a New Orleans area woman he encountered long ago who helped in circumstance like these, back when he worked for Jefferson Parish.
Lise Naccari, who lives on the New Orleans area’s north shore, said she was ready and able to help. As director of a unique non-profit that specializes in cases like this one, she has provided helping hearts and hands since 2003. In 2007 she founded Compassionate Burials for Indigent Babies. The mission is a simple one. They provide burials for indigent babies, or those who have been abandoned and have nobody to provide a dignified burial or to mourn.
“I got involved because when I was 30-years-old I had a miscarriage,” Naccari explained. “I was five months pregnant and I lost my baby and it was a very traumatic thing for me. So I can understand women who have this happen to them. I could not imagine what it would be like if you didn’t have enough money to bury your baby. It is grievous. When people need help after the death of a baby they get a free funeral with no questions asked. We have had situations as well where a baby was murdered and there was no mom, or situations where the mom had no interest in a burial. We have the privilege of being able to bury these babies and when they need it we will give them a name.”
CBIB cared for and buried the remains of 17 babies in 2017. In most cases crypts the organization has purchased or had donated are utilized. The four most recent burials were in crypts at St. Patrick Cemetery in New Orleans. But sometimes the group will aid a family requesting help with burial outside greater New Orleans and neighboring communities like Lafourche.
Naccari has a network of more than 50 Louisiana volunteers, who aid in some way with the group’s mission on a regular basis. The M.A. Muhleisen and Son Funeral Home has provided services free when necessary.
Some of the volunteers provide special services that help the organization better meet its goals of serving the dead children with compassion and dignity.
Volunteers who have wood-working ability hand-build the tiny caskets that the group uses for burials.
Donations of wedding dresses are put to use as linings for the coffins. They serve another purpose as well. They are sewn, Naccari said, into “gowns of dignity.”
“We first got the idea for our babies to be dressed in gowns of dignity when we were burying a baby that was thrown away like trash in a trash can in Metairie the day after Mardi Gras,” Naccari said. “She was naked and wrapped in newspaper. What we do is an act of love.”
There is one more thing Naccari and the other angels from CBIB do for infants.
Each child that is buried is given a name if he or she did not have one.
When Mark Goldman from Lafourche called last week to see if Naccari could help with the baby suddenly put in his charge, she answered without hesitation that she would.
And then she asked if Mark would care to give the baby a name.
When she is laid to rest in a CBIB crypt, dressed in a gown of dignity, she will bear the name “Precious.”
