Babies who died before birth but reached more than six months of gestation must be registered and may have a name in the Civil Registry file. The measure will be applied as of this Wednesday, August 9, although the registration will not have legal effects, as published this Tuesday by the Official State Gazette (BOE).
The instruction establishes the obligatory nature of the death occurring after the first six months of gestation and before the birth to appear in a Civil Registry file, without legal effects, with the parents being able to give a name.
In addition, not only deceased babies may be registered, but all deaths that occurred prior to the entry into force of the measure may be registered, provided that the parents so request within a period of two years from this Wednesday.
With this order of July 21, an order of May 26, 1988 on certain models of the Civil Registry is modified. The registry will have an index containing the name and surname of the mother and, where appropriate, that of the child, and will be numbered correlatively, in order to facilitate the search.
Until now, the data of the babies who died before birth were collected in the so-called “abortion file” and through a “declaration and part of the birth of abortive creatures”. There was no space on that document for the child’s name.
Losing a baby at birth, after a few days of life or during pregnancy is a traumatic experience that 2,500 couples in Spain go through every year, according to the latest data from 2021. Some fathers and mothers of babies who have died in the pregnancy or at birth they want to have a space to leave flowers, break the silence or for relatives to recognize their baby. For a few years, some municipal spaces have been ceded to meet this need. For example, in 2018, cemeteries in Lleida and towns in the province began to reserve a place for the memory of the deceased in question.
