“Hello, I’m coming for the poetry workshop. Do you want me to read a poem to your baby? » Mathilde Toulot, 46, walks the corridors of the neonatal intensive care and pediatrics department of the Robert-Debré AP-HP hospital, in Paris. Pushing a cart full of books in front of her, she knocks on the doors of the rooms occupied by tiny patients.
This January afternoon, Aïchata (the people mentioned by their first name did not wish to give their last name), 36 years old, welcomes this special moment with a smile. Her last son, Mustapha, was born two and a half months ago, at 27 weeks pregnant. This very premature baby with closed eyes and a wise face is curled up in his arms.
Next to his bed, machines monitor his heart rate, the oxygenation rate of his blood and the rate of his breathing. Inserted into its nostrils, two small cannulas assist its immature lungs. Mathilde Toulot sits on a chair and addresses him with a first poem. The beep which signaled slightly low oxygenation stops : “It soothes him”, his mother marvels.
Since September, Mathilde Toulot’s poetry workshops have been offered two afternoons per month in the neonatology department. The fruit of a somewhat miraculous meeting between this former fashion editor converted to publishing and Adèle Boulanger, speech therapist.
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