The Antibes hospital has installed a refrigerated cradle for perinatal bereavement and immediately placed it at the centre of a compulsory regional pilgrimage, with guided tours departing every twenty minutes from the maternity wing and a strict rule that no visitor may speak above a whisper.
The hospital's director, Émeline Baudoin, announced that the cradle will be kept at minus eighteen degrees at all times and that the entire staff has been retrained to walk backwards when within four metres of it. «We found that grief moves faster when the room is cold,» she said. «So we made the whole floor cold.»
By the second week, the hospital had extended the tour to the car park, where a second refrigerated cradle was installed for overflow. Local officials now require every new employee in the Alpes-Maritimes to complete a two-hour silent walk past the unit before receiving a badge. The regional council has approved a budget line for thermal blankets for visitors, and the queue on opening day stretched past the helipad.
The hospital's next step is a mobile refrigerated cradle that will tour the coast by ambulance, stopping at every town hall for a scheduled moment of silence. Baudoin has asked the prefecture to lower the speed limit on the entire route to walking pace.