Pregnancy Loss and Infant Remembrance

[kejRN]

Hey everyone, I wanted to get some suggestions on a tough subject. This might be a bit of a long winded post. Yesterday was Pregnancy Loss and Infant Remembrance Day. Yesterday, our unit (with no involvement from the hospital) did our third yearly candlelight memorial walk for our patients who have experienced a loss, whether it was a pregnancy or an infant. We have a nurse who has a passion for this. She has spearheaded tracking/collecting data on the patients who come in. For the past few years, our unit sends out invitations to these patients inviting them to participate in a candlelight walk if they wish. There are a few speakers, some music, and then a quiet candlelit walk through a park on the hospital campus. It seems as though there are only a few patients who decide to participate, but they all brought a lot of family support. Last night, we were talking about things that we could do to get more support or bring more attention to this or maybe get more community involvement. We were talking about seeing if we could get local businesses to donate flowers, food, etc. We were also wanting to see involvement from the hospital (management support, etc).

Is there anyone who has experience in doing something like this with their hospital? Or, if you have experienced a loss yourself, would this be something you would participate in and if so, what would you like to see/hear/do?

Our main goal is to be there for our patients and let them know that we care about them and that we want to honor their babies that are no longer with us. We are the ones they see when they come in and we hold their hands through this sad and emotional time.

If anyone has any ideas, thoughts, comments, concerns, please let me know! We want to get on planning for next year because it is something we would like to keep doing for our patients. Thanks for your input!

[ragingmomster, BSN, MSN, RN]

Community involvement may be your best next step. Perhaps there are loss support groups that might be interested in joining your ceremony? How large of a facility do you work in? Do you have a patient and family experience office?

[Buyer beware, BSN]

OP: You speak of an area of human experience that many people outside of OB are completely unfamiliar with.

I will leave it to the experts to quantify the numbers of stllborn pregnancies that occur in the U.S. each year. I don't know if the numbers, and I don't mean to be unkind to those who have suffered this loss, are statistically significant enough for those unaffected to take notice. All I know is that the situation when it does happen very often has a profound affect on those who go through it.

To underscore this observation there are sites on the web that show photos of stillborn babies being held by parents ( one is called the gallery of beautiful stillborn babies). To the majority of us both male and female the concept of doing this seems macabre but having known a mother who had experienced this situation her loss and pain were palpable.

So OP your outreach program is commendable and bringing together people in need of comfort and support should dissuade those undergoing this intense grieving process from having to go it alone.