How to Truly Be There For Someone Who’s Lost Their Baby
How to Truly Be There For Someone Who’s Lost Their Baby
It can be hard to find the right words and actions to help someone dealing with such a loss. Here's what to remember.
Jul 27 2021, 12:03 PM
Losing someone is never easy, but sometimes the death can have a qualifier. It was quick. It was time. It was the end of a long life. When someone loses a baby, there aren’t any modifiers.
“There’s no life to live. A pregnancy is the ultimate possibility and potential, but the parents don’t get to know who that person was,” says Kellie Wicklund, therapist and director of Maternal Wellness Center in Hatboro, Pennsylvania.
But the parents still have to mourn, and the outside world doesn’t always like to see that. People get uncomfortable, and disappear or “say really stupid stuff,” says Taryn Schuelke, grief bereavement specialist at Texas Children’s Hospital. She adds that when someone loses a baby, there’s often another obstacle: The belief that if the life was short, the grieving should be as well. This is untrue. The grief experienced after a miscarriage comes in waves and hits at unexpected times. And it never fully goes away.
Losing a baby is incredibly difficult. It can be especially so for dads who often get taught early on to not have feelings beyond happy/angry and who aren’t given the skills to manage them, says Jennifer Kaiser, maternal mental health counselor in New York City. Read more.
