Iufd/miscarriage

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Hi, I am a L&D nurse in Fl and am looking to put together a bereavement packet at my hospital for IUFD/miscarriages. I am just wondering what other hospitals use. I remember one hospital I worked for had folders and door cards with a leaf and tear on them......I cannot remember the name of these materials.....We currently are using nice memory boxes....but I feel we need a good reference book to use when this happens and most importantly literature to pass along to the grieving parents.......any info would be appreciated!!! thanks

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Specializes in rehab; med/surg; l&d; peds/home care.

when i worked l&d, our memory boxes had a booklet that i think was called "when hello means goodbye", very nice booklet. also included were handknit booties and cap made by our volunteers, foot and handprints, photos of the baby, their hospital bands, a lock of hair if they wanted it, and lots of stuff about support groups online, and in their area, were also offered at the hospital. also had little angel pins made out of crystal and had a little poem on it, though don't remember the name of the poem.

we had social worker come to talk to the parents, also a grief counselor. we put a purple ribbon on their door so everyone knew that their was a fetal demise. we had a lot of moms later call and thank us for their boxes and the support they got. we worked in a rather small l&d, just 9 beds.

http://www.akronchildrens.org/precious_parents/books.html

they have the booklet i mentioned on this list, it's about halfway down and it is called "when hello means goodbye". this list i found is extensive, looks like a lot of good reading.

hope this helped~

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one of our nurses has put together a great collection of resources/handouts for our patients, and I think most of them come from one company- next time I work I'll try to get the name and contact info for you

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Specializes in Nurse Manager, Labor and Delivery.

The RTS webiste, which is a bereavement services organization, has a wonderful section for materials and products. We use a lot of the materials thru them. Their logo is the leaf with the teardrop you mentioned. We used to use their memory boxes, which are very very nice, but they are expensive. A local art group here donates handpainted boxes for our memory boxes and are quite nice. Check out their site and see what you think.

http://www.bereavementservices.org

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Our hospital also includes a silver teardrop pendant, which the mom can add to a bracelet or a chain for a necklace to remember the baby. Most of our memory boxes are simular to the others listed.

It was very sad, recently we've had a run of IUFD's and we ran out of silver teardrops. :o Some reason there's been so many lately.

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The RTS webiste, which is a bereavement services organization, has a wonderful section for materials and products. We use a lot of the materials thru them. Their logo is the leaf with the teardrop you mentioned. We used to use their memory boxes, which are very very nice, but they are expensive. A local art group here donates handpainted boxes for our memory boxes and are quite nice. Check out their site and see what you think.

http://www.bereavementservices.org

thanks for the link! That is the same organization we get our materials, memory boxes, etc from. One of our nurses also collected a large number of seashells and we make plaster footprints or handprints in the shells.

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I just wanted to add that "When Hello Means Goodbye" is currently out of print. This was a book that I'd recommend to clients who were grieving an infant loss. You may want to check Amazon, but Barnes and Noble doesn't have any matches in their "out of print" network.

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for all the wonderful info.....esp RTS....that was the one I was referring to.....but I also love the teardrop pendant idea.....something they can have with them to always remember.....any other ideas/posts would gladly be appreciated!

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

Hi. As a mom who has had 6 miscarriages in the 1st trimester, it would be nice to see the hospital offering something to those moms. I know my hospital does things for moms who had a still birth, but thwy don't offer anything to the moms who had 1st trimester miscarriages, even if it;s just a packet with info or support group contacts.

Shannon

Hi, I am a L&D nurse in Fl and am looking to put together a bereavement packet at my hospital for IUFD/miscarriages. I am just wondering what other hospitals use. I remember one hospital I worked for had folders and door cards with a leaf and tear on them......I cannot remember the name of these materials.....We currently are using nice memory boxes....but I feel we need a good reference book to use when this happens and most importantly literature to pass along to the grieving parents.......any info would be appreciated!!! thanks
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