For people close to the parents

Faced with situations of the prenatal diagnosis of an illness, in addition to the shock of the announcement, the parents find themselves confronted with the bewilderment of their family and/or friends.
Some will reject any image of a handicapped child and will therefore push the parents to hurry up and chose, to choose to end the pregnancy.
As for the idea of carrying on and accompanying the child, this will often be viewed with incomprehension and rejection by friends and family or at best with a retreating attitude faced with a situation that seems unthinkable and frightens them.
“Well meaning” words, can be perceived by the parents as "aggressive" since they bring advice, how to behave, decisions to take for the couple, as well as judgements or appreciations on their way of living or doing.
One should not hesitate to protect oneself. Moreover, some parents will spontaneously only talk about the situation with certain, well identified people close to them. This is normal, even necessary. They have not become "bizarre", selfish or withdrawn. They just have an immense need to be supported and they find this through those that they know will genuinely show this support.

The death of the baby will occur and shake the whole family, all the more so since in most cases it will be the first confrontation with death due to longer life expectancy and the near disappearance of infant mortality. And what a confrontation, in a period where the attachment is the strongest, in particular for the mother who lives it carnally! The loss of the baby is experienced as a wrenching separation. Even if the death was predicted and the cause known, the situation remains an extremely violent one, all the more so since the new-born often did not have a real social existence yet for the extended family. Memories are thus so few that the parents are completely lost and feel to be in a thousand pieces.
The attitude of friends and family can be essential in helping parents to progress through their mourning and not repress their grief. Friends and family can contribute to lessening the “unjust” aspect of this death through their solidarity and important presence. Such support, even in the first period where the family is de-structured and even for material details, allows parents to come to terms with the change that has intervened in their life. All this should be done with discernment and without ever trying to decide for the parents or ever imposing ones way of doing things.
Later, friends and family must learn to give the child his whole place, even if the child died in the womb or after a few minutes, a few hours or a few days of life. Since the parents’ major fear is to forget their child one day and to see him or her so quickly forgotten by people close to them: the child left so little traces in our world!
Give the parents time to cry, to want to speak about their baby, to not want to do anything.
Keep the memory of the baby’s time by photos if this is wished or possible.
Do not focus their attention on a future pregnancy, which will never replace the mourning process and the next child will not make the one who has gone be forgotten
Parental reconstruction is long, difficult and will be expressed differently by the mother and father, listening, patience and a great understanding of the shock that the parents have experienced give friends and family the means to be a factor in rebuilding the grieving family.

 

Don’t tell me that she is better off where she is now; she is not here with me.

Don’t tell me that she is not suffering any more, I never let her suffer.

Don’t tell me "at least you had her for three months”;

According to you at what age should your child die?

Simply tell me that you remember Bertille, if you remember her

Please mention Bertille’s firstname.