|
From Hurt to Healing: Dealing With A Loss
..................................................................................................................................................
Most babies are born
healthy. But sometimes, something goes wrong and a baby dies either in the
womb or shortly after birth. Here’s what you should know if that happens to
you or to someone you know.
The death of an infant is perhaps the most difficult and wrenching tragedy
any family can imagine. When a baby dies, a bit of our dream dies. A bit of
our future is erased before ever having been written.
Besides the physical loss, there is an emotional loss and a loss of all that
a new life promises. This is true whether the baby died as a newborn or
before birth due to miscarriage, stillbirth or other reasons.
Society has been slow to recognize that the impact on the parents can be the
same regardless of when the loss occurred. Parents' grief after a
miscarriage or pre-term birth is as valid and real as their grief after the
loss of a full-term baby.
Parents never really get over the loss of their baby. But they learn to live
without his or her physical presence and, eventually, they integrate the
loss into their life's experience. They are changed … but that very change
serves as a lasting testament to their baby's existence.
What's important for parents who suffer the loss of a baby to realize is
that they can and will move through their grief to healing. Understanding
that grief is a process can help defuse feelings of powerlessness and
provide some measure of consolation, hope and peace.
|