Losing a Child
It is significant that the death of a child is not just the tragedy of stillbirth, cot death, or illnesses or accidents that take the life of a young girl or boy, or adolescent. A child is a child at thirty or forty to the parents of that adult. And when adults die there is often a parent, or parents, left to grieve.
The death of a child is especially brutal because it’s untimely, in that it upsets the concept of a ‘natural’ order of life and death wherein parents die before their children. For this reason alone, perhaps, there is no greater grief than the grief following the death
I of a child. It’s a crushing upset from which many people feel they do not fully recover. This is especially true if the death is accompanied, as it often is, by intense feelings of guilt, regret and failure.
Death of a Fetus or Newborn Baby
While the loss of a child throws up unique issues whatever the child’s age, there do appear to be special problems associated with the death of a child during pregnancy, or soon after birth. If your child died a very early death it’s likely that your feelings of being somehow at fault are intense. This may be because parents are parents, and the duty of parents is to be able to provide for their children. In a sense parents are the ones whose duty it is to ‘fix’ it so that their child will have a safe environment in which to grow up. Sadly, parents simply cannot fix everything. Miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death and cot death (otherwise known as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS) are often wholly unpredictable. They are therefore unpreventable.
Nevertheless, the shock of saying goodbye to a dear child before having said hello is devastating. This sense of loss and aloneness may be amplified by the staggeringly insensitive and unhelpful comments of others. Choice among these are: ‘Don’t worry. You can have another one’, or ‘I know it’s sad, but it’s not as if you really knew the baby’. The expectation of those who have not suffered such a loss seems to be that the bonds of parenthood are somehow more valid if the child who died was at least a toddler, or boy or girl of primary school age. The reality is different. Attachment to a child usually begins even before it is born – a mother is likely to recognize her foetus as an individual.
The background to the death, when it occurs in the hospital, may be cloudy. Mothers are often sedated. They may not be given the option of holding their dead child, as some hospitals continue the practice of routinely cremating foetuses and the stillborn, even though many foetuses are well formed by twenty-eight weeks. Mothers may feel particularly bereft if they have no token to indicate that their baby existed at all. It is natural and comforting to cherish a lock of hair, a photograph or an inky foot- or handprint on a piece of paper. They may have nothing except the memory of a small white coffin, and a short, sad service just before the burial or cremation of their child.
All of this can cause ,specific patterns of grief in parents whose children die very young. In addition to thoughts of anger, guilt and depression there is often a profound sense of ‘what might have been’. Linked to this are private fantasies of what the child could have achieved. This can add to feelings of being detached socially, and from reality, which in turn fuel fears of going slightly crazy.
It’s not too surprising, therefore, to find that couples find it difficult to talk to each other about the death of their baby. But there is a further problem in that fathers are unlikely to have formed as strong an attachment to the baby as the mother at the earliest stages. As a result, marriages after a stillbirth or SIDS death can suffer severe trauma.
Clearly, recovery after the early death of a child is by no means easy, but there are positive steps you can take which will help to rebuild your life:
- Hold the baby If possible, and the doctors agree, hold your baby. For a few minutes look upon your child as having been born; cradle the baby gently in your arms, and caress him or her. This might seem a strange thing to suggest, but it is important for mothers to form a final attachment with their baby, and for fathers to be given an opportunity to develop an emotional bond with their child. This provides a sensitive and very human closing to life that will serve as a small, yet significant, memory that will sustain you in grief. Take photographs, ask for a lock of hair, or a print of your baby’s hand or foot.
- Help plan the funeral The funeral provides an opportunity to say goodbye to your baby. Normally, hospitals will provide such a service free for foetal deaths and neonatal deaths. They use the services of a contract undertaker for a specific cemetery. Remember that you are not obliged to accept these arrangements if you believe they are unsatisfactory for any reason. It may be that you disapprove of the cemetery itself or the style of service it offers. If the thought of a white coffin is too harsh a container for a child that has not tasted much of life, you could consider using something that has altogether less jarring imagery and connotations. This could simply be a soft shawl or shroud, or other cloth. Ask if you can personally place the body in the grave; you can ensure that it is a ‘natural’ position. Choosing a private ceremony might also mean fewer restrictions on the placing of tokens of love, such as teddies and dollies, by the grave. In making a private arrangement you could think about buying an adult grave so that you can be buried with your child when you die.
- Remember Naturally, you will want to remember your baby. However, the best way to remember your baby is not to succumb to the temptation to make a shrine out of a nursery that you might have prepared in anticipation of your baby’s birth. There will come a time when you will have to reappraise the value of keeping hold of what could have been, and remember your baby in more healthy and positive ways. These may include simply looking at what photographs or other remembrances you may have, and openly (without bitter regret) talking with your partner of what hopes you had for your child. But more than this, you could add to the memory of your child by giving gifts to organizations that help needy children throughout the world. You could choose significant dates such as Christmas or the birthday of your child to do this.
