A desired pregnancy is the concrete proof of the love and commitment shared
between two people. The opportunity of having a child has the capacity to change
someone in many ways. In some ways, these changes are undeniable, such as the
biological change that occurs to a woman's body when she embarks on her journey of
motherhood. There are also the more silent changes. Emotional changes that keep you
up at night wondering if you are truly ready to take on this life changing experience.
Hopes and dreams fill your head of the never ending potential your child will have and
the places and things they will do with such.
In a healthy pregnancy, a couple has at least 37 long weeks to prepare their
“nest” to welcome their very own bundle of joy. While it is a harsh reality, the sad truth is
that many of these pregnancies end with loss. Whether it be through a miscarriage,
stillbirth, death of the newborn due to complications during childbirth, or sudden infant
death syndrome (SIDS) of a seemingly healthy baby less than a year old, the loss of
what could have been all feels unbearable. In order to honor the pain of parents,
families, and friends that have lived through these uncanny times, October 15th has
been designated as the World’s Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.
Although the death of a baby, either in utero or after birth, tremendously affects
both the couple and close loved ones, research shows that mothers tend to carry this
pain with much more burden than any other involved party. This emotional consequence
is most likely due to her natural role of life carrier and primary caregiver of the newborn.
If by misfortune things go wrong and her body involuntarily expels the baby as in the
case of an abortion; or the baby unexpectedly dies during pregnancy; or even suffers
severe injuries during childbirth; unfortunately mothers tends to assigned themselves
full responsibility of the loss. They believe they have failed by not being able to protect
their babies, awaking feelings of inadequacy, shame, guilt, anger, sadness, and
disappointment.
Many women express that it is a very difficult grief to navigate, especially
because they feel lonely and misunderstood by their own support system. If the
pregnancy is interrupted during the first weeks, people tend to minimize their pain as if
the size of the baby would determine the amount of emotional pain allowed. But what
about all those dreams that arose with the good news of a wanted pregnancy? Or the
negative feelings related to her inadequacy to be a good mom, or to bring to life the
concrete proof of her love for her spouse?
In the same way, when the baby is lost at advanced stages of pregnancy,
delivery, or after birth, the same painful grief has the aggravating factor of evident
physical changes that even a complete stranger could interpret as “There is a baby on
its way”. The deformed image of a mom’s body only makes sense if they were rewarded
with the tenderness of their baby. The labor pain can only be compensated by the cry
and feel of their child's lively warm body. Her flowing breast milk only serves its purpose
when there is a baby to help grow stronger everyday. Even when no baby arrives, she
still needs to face this raw reality.
Even after the pain of physical loss diminishes, the thought of returning to a
home that once contained a nursery built on dreams now quickly takes on the form of a
nightmare. Furthermore, she will then also need to get acclimated to her new reality;
one that will be filled with questions of what had happened; forcing her to explain that
there is no baby, even when signs of her body show others what once could have been.
On many occasions women are forced to listen to well intended comments such as
"God knows what he is doing"; "you both are still young"; "everything happens for a
reason ", that only work to increase one’s suffering by reaffirming their inability to
connect with their loss.
In summary, the loss of a baby is a social phenomenon that couples live with in
great pain and loneliness. By attending to the real emotional needs of the couple,
especially the mother’s, we could help them make peace with their loss. At the end it
seems realistic to agree that no one ever overcomes the death of a loved one, but one
can definitely learn how to live with it. I encourage our community to try our best to
provide effective emotional support to all those parents, family members, and close
friends that have encountered this hardship in their lives, and accompany them in
honoring the loving memory of a dream that did not come true.
Read more about this topic in our blog, or get in touch for treatment.
Written by: Cristina Behrens-Soulavy, RMHC-I