Going through a new pregnancy after experiencing a loss can be a very emotional and lonely period of time. Many families feel alone during this time and some feel judged or feel guilty, as though they are replacing their dead child with another one. Some have received advice to forget about their dead child and “move on” while others feel that their dead child has been forgotten by everyone around them except themselves.

So what can you do to support someone (this could be a friend, your partner or a relative) who is having another baby after the loss of a previous child? In this blog post you will find suggestions of things that you can do to make this time easier and happier for everyone involved while still allowing the parent/s to mourn the loss of their previous child.

The one thing that the majority of parents who experienced the loss of a child want is for their dead child to be acknowledged and remembered. They fear that their child who has passed on will be forgotten by everyone except themselves and if their child had a name they fear it will be forgotten too. These feelings can be exacerbated by the news that they are expecting a new baby and they will need a lot of support during this time.

1. You can remember their child, talk about their child, say his or her name, buy something special for the parent/s that commemorates the child who has died and also includes the new baby. Make sure that while you are celebrating a new life, a living baby, that the other child is also remembered and included in these celebrations.

2. Make sure that the parents know that you are thinking of them, and that you haven’t forgotten the child that they have lost.

3. This doesn’t mean that you can’t celebrate the new baby, you still can. Make the parent/s feel special, loved and supported, this new baby is a gift and is extra special to the parent/s because they already know what it is like to lose something so precious. At the same time make sure that they are aware that you haven’t forgotten their much loved child who died.

4. Do something special for the parent/s. It can be cleaning their house, looking after any other children for a day or night so that they can have some special time together, doing a bulk cook up for them so they can have meals in the freezer, get a special gift for the both of them, do something in honour of the baby who has passed away. There are so many things that you can do.

5. Involve any other children (if they are old enough to understand) and family members in preparations for the arrival of the new baby. Get them to help in doing something special that will be “from” the baby/child who has passed away “to” the parent/s and the new baby.

6. Remember the dates. Just letting the parent/s know that you are thinking of them on the birthday of their lost child and on the anniversary of the day their baby/child died can be a big help to grieving parent/s, especially when there is a new baby on the way and they are feeling alone and may be feeling guilty about having another baby.

7. Keep involved. A lot of grieving parent/s note that people drift away from them after the loss of a child and if they become pregnant again they are very lonely and don’t have the support network that they used to have during their last pregnancy. Stay involved in their lives, pop by for a visit regularly as they will appreciate it a lot, call them regularly to see how they are going. Continue to be a part of their lives.

8. Ask them how they are “really” feeling. Many grieving parent/s hide how they really feel from others, including their own families. They feel like they can’t talk or that no one is listening or that if they do talk they will be told to “get over it” or be considered silly or stupid. Really talk to them and have in depth conversations about how they really feel. It will help them. Listen to them, be an open ear for everything that they need to talk about, even if it is the same things over and over and over again keep listening to them and supporting them because they really need your help to work through it all and may need to say these things a thousand times before they can start to heal or before they accept that they will actually be having a living baby to take home.

9. Make them laugh. When you are still grieving and are expecting a new baby it can be very hard to see the funny side in anything. Help them to see the funny side again. Help them to laugh and enjoy themselves again. Let them know that you care about them deeply and you don’t want to make their child’s death seem like it is nothing but that you want to see them smile and laugh again as you miss that part of them. Tell them that it is ok to be happy to be having a new baby after a child has died, that it is ok to enjoy things again.

10. Help them to heal. Losing a child breaks your heart. It isn’t something that ever goes away, it is always there in the back of a parent/s mind. Their hearts ache when they think of their child. In the early days they may cry a lot, maybe all day. Many grieving parent/s cut themselves off from the world and refuse to leave the house or do anything in general. Be there for them during this time, support them, remind them of the good times, cry with them when they are having a really bad day, hug them when they need a hug. When grieving parent/s are expecting a new baby all of these things can come back and affect them, and it can seem like it is happening all over again. They may need the same support that they needed back then. They may need more support. They will need to know that they are not alone anymore and that you will be there for them.
All of this will help them to heal from the intense pain that having lost a child prior to expecting a new baby brings, and while it will never go away and they will always be changed by this experience.

I hope that this will help those who are supporting families through a new pregnancy after a loss.

Jenna Edgley
Student Birth Doula
FOOTPRINTS & RAINBOWS

Time and time again I see on the pregnancy and parenting boards and facebook groups women saying the same things; "My doctor won't allow me to do this", "my doctor won't allow me to do that" "my doctor will allow me to dilate at x amount an hour before doing a cesarean section", "my doctor says it is too dangerous for me to do this" etc, etc, etc.

When did we lose our faith in ourselves and our bodies to do things naturally? It seems like every year more and more women are putting their minds into the control of doctors and other medical personel and not thinking for themselves. It stinks of mental abuse.

Some of you who read this may think that I am going a bit too far in linking mental abuse with how we are treated by doctors, but the fact is that that is what is happening. Women are losing control over what they wish to do during labour and pregnancy. We are told that we CANNOT put on more than a set amount of weight, and if we do put on more than that set amount we are made to feel bad about it and put on a "pregnancy diet" to stop us from gaining any more weight.
We are told that we HAVE to dilate a certain amount each hour - and if we don't dilate that much we become disheartened and feel like we have failed, that our bodies do not work, when in actual fact our bodies DO work, but not to any doctors schedule, they work to their own schedule and just as we drag our feet and try to avoid something that we don't like our uterus behaves in the same way - if something isn't right, or we are afraid, or we haven't had anything to eat or drink our uterus will slow down, clamp up and not work as fast or as effectively as it could. And when the uterus slows down interventions are brought into play - breaking the amniotic sac, starting a pitocin drip, or mum is labeled as "failure to progress" and a cesarean section is done, which makes more risk for any future pregnancies and births.

Don't get me wrong, there is a time and a place for a cesarean section and other interventions, but they should only be used when there is no other option and mother and/or baby will become compromised or will die.

What gets my hackles up is that as a general rule in any hospital or medical setting we are no longer able to make our own decisions in regards to how we treat ourselves during pregnancy, in how we labour and how we birth our babies without fighting for it. We are told that we cannot do this and cannot do that. We are controlled and forced into a averaged block of women who deliver their babies within 12-24 hours and if we take longer than that to deliver we are labelled and effectively told our bodies have failed and do not know what they have to do in order to deliver a baby. We are treated like animals, pushed into one thing after another, in many cases our objections are ignored and we are not listened to at all. In other cases women are physically held down on the bed to labour on their backs.

Some of you may think that these things I have mentioned are a part of history from the 1950's and 1960's and even earlier than that, but the reality is that they are still happening today 50 and 60+ years later. Women are still being treated like this, some women are having drugs injected into them without ever having given consent, or they consent to having one pain relieving drug and are given another one instead at the doctor's orders. That can't be true you say? It is, I am one of those women who were given another drug instead of the one requested. I asked for Pethideine and was given Terbutaline instead, at 40 weeks and 2 days pregnant, all because the obstetrician on call didn't feel comfortable dealing with a VBAC delivery. I didn't find out about the Terbutaline until my youngest child was 2 days old when the paediatrician went through my notes with me to see if something had happened during labour that could have contributed to her post birth issues and low apgar scores, to say I was shocked was an understatement. it was just one more thing that made me angry and contributed to my post natal depression.

What happened to me is not a rare ocurrance, it is very, very common. Recently I saw a post by another lady on a pregnancy and parenting forum about the same doctor who did this to me. This same doctor contributed to the death of her baby in-utero by not providing the care he was supposed to. Between 34 and 39 week this doctor refused to see this woman and told her to just see the midwives. By the time he finally saw the woman after being called down to the emergency department when she was 39 weeks it was too late and the baby was stillborn.

Doctors like this are very common, they are in every hospital around the world and you won't know if you are seeing one until push comes to shove and your requests are ignored or you are given the "fear tactics" spiel about the risks you will take etc.


So take control of your body and your pregnancy and labour. Ask questions, say no, don't let others do things to you just because they can. YOU ARE IN CHARGE, not them!

Jenna
Student Birth Doula
FOOTPRINTS & RAINBOWS Birth Doula Services