Does society treat miscarried/stillborn babies differently than infants that die after birth? (Please read details)

!) I can’t speak for society. In my limited experience stillborn children are not treated as “babies” by hospital staff. My experience is so limited as to be statistically insignificant.

2) Yes. I have seen this happen on more than one occasion.

3) In my opinion a parent is entitled to mourn the loss of their child. Whether or not the child ever passed alive through the birth canal is immaterial to their loss. I don’t wish to look at pictures of dead babies, and I don’t have a Facebook account, so I can’t answer that part of the question. Keeping remains in a freezer is a very common circumstance which is not unique to dead children. I have no particular opinion about it and I don’t see the relevance to the question as a whole.

My neighbors had burials in the family plot for both the children they lost, with caskets, and arrangements handled by a funeral home. One was at six months gestation, the other was in the 8th month. It cost them $3000 for each burial. Both times, they knew the baby was dead, and made arrangements with the funeral home before she went into the hospital to have the remains taken to the funeral home. The caskets were very small.

I think each person mourns miscarriages and stillbirths differently. Society perhaps tends to treat it differently than the death of an infant because the relationship with a fetus is one of hopes and dreams; with an infant there is actual interactions, caregiving, a face that looks like one of the parents or another relative.

I’m sure she and he had as much invested in the child as anyone else. That just sucks they lost the baby.

Here is a very powerful book on the subject.

Here are some ideas for rituals after such a loss.

I think we as a society don’t handle these situations well, but people can’t just shut off their feelings. The loss is still a loss.

Our society treats all death as something ugly and to be feared.
It was not that long ago that many families prepared and kept their deceased loved ones on ‘display’ at home for viewing before burial. Taking photographs was popular as well, especially during the Victorian era.

I see nothing ‘sick’ or ‘disgusting’ about this, however, I would choose to not place a photo of my dead infant on facebook.

Probably depends on the country, the culture, and the individual. When I miscarried early in pregnancies, I did not mourn the fetus, but did mourn the hopes I had for the baby that could have been. I saw it more as a loss of pregnancy than a child. However, I think as the pregnancy gets closer and closer to term, it is more and more like losing a child. I think for a fetal death to be considered still it must be a certain amount of weeks old, but I do not know the rules.

For me, if the baby dies in utero, I don’t think I would consider a funeral of any sort, or feel the need for a grave. If it was born alive, but only for moments I am not sure what I would want. But, I guess still birth is always dying before birth, isn’t it?

The doctors in the collective probably know the laws of how such things are handled.

A friend had several miscarriages and 1 birth of triplets that should not have lived when born because they were all before 20weeks gestation before having a healthy baby. However the triplets lived for hours after birth. With the miscarriages she didn’t do anything because it happened so early in the pregnancy that it was 2 or 3 mths along but with the triplets she held a funeral and their bodies were transferred to the funeral home directly. When they were born she was instructed that they medically they were unable to do anything for the babies if they happen to be born alive so the hospital let them all die slowly because they had a hard time breathing on their own. She got to hold them and rock them and enjoy them all until they each passed. She stayed with them until she felt comfortable leaving them. It was so very sad. It was the happiest time of all when she finally gave birth to a heathly baby about a year later.

Due to infertility, I had to resort to technological means in order to have children. It involved an operation for both me and my wife. The first time we tried, it was an anxious two weeks before we could have a definitive pregnancy test.

It was negative. It was devastating.

We knew the chances of success were small. 10%. But we’d both been wanting children for a long time, and when we found out about my infertility issues it made me crazy. Depressed. I felt like an alien.

Later on, we tried again, and at first there were 4 heartbeats. One by one, they blinked out, until there was only one. It was an anxious nine months wondering if the one would become none.

I think that a child is made up of fantasy and hope, mostly. We have no idea who they will be or what they will do, but we have a full picture of some ideal child in our imaginations. The fetus carries the burden of those hopes and fantasies, and if the foetus dies, the hopes and dreams die with it.

When you lose that much—your hope, really, for the only form of immortality we can have, it is a huge loss. Most people think that having a baby is easy. One is much the same as another. If it isn’t ever really alive, then it doesn’t matter.

But the loss can be huge, and all losses need to be mourned. If society doesn’t understand or support that mourning, it can make you crazy, wondering why you feel the way you do.

I think most people keep grief for lives that never were somewhat hidden. It is almost shameful to grieve for a baby lost before it is born, I think. I don’t think a lot of people understand, but then a lot of people don’t like grief and any expression of it makes them uncomfortable.

@wundayatta that made me cry.

I still think about the baby I miscarried. I wonder who they would have been. I cried for days/weeks after. For me they were never an “oh well”.

It seemed slightly demented to me that I was expected to know just what to do when the actual miscarriage happened…at home.

There were no services for women who miscarried. I hope that has changed. Not that I think adding a full blown funeral would be what I would have wanted but there have to some options beyond burying the poor babe in the back yard like bird that died.

I would not post something like that on Facebook. But to each his own. Facebook wasn’t around in those days.

@tranquilsea I feel like there is a conspiracy to keep miscarriage and problem pregnancies hidden. I would not post anything on facebook, but it bothers me that there is this general idea or feeling in America that pregnancy is wonderful, and natural, and most pregnancies have no difficulties la dee da. When in fact 1 in 5 known pregnancies miscarry, and women have all sorts of health problems and irregularities during pregnancy and delivery. Women are made to feel like they are the only one, when it is almost routine in an OB office to have a patient miscarrying on a given day.

@JLeslie I agree. That is a major reason that I felt compelled to ask this question. Of course I delved pretty deeply into a specific aspect of it, but it really does seem like it is treated differently than a healthy or full term pregnancy. There seems to be a lot of unspoken shame surrounding the circumstances, and then the subsequent actions are subject to even more scrutiny. (Say that 5 times fast.)

@ANef_is_Enuf Honestly, I blame the pro-lifers and puritanlike people in our country.

I think there is some implicit “you’re somehow damaged” when you miscarry. That some how it’s your fault.

One of the worst things that has ever been said about me was when my MIL very loudly asked my husband on the phone if I had made up my mind on whether I was pregnant or not. I grabbed the phone and threw it across the room.

@tranquilsea ew, that was rotten of her.

@tranquilsea That’s just horrible for her to say ..jeez. That’s when I’d say have you made up your mind about being a complete bitch or not. Sorry, people like that really irk me.

It was awful of her. She didn’t stop there either.

That’s a shame. No one deserves that, and certainly not you.

That was 18 years ago and the comment still hurts just like yesterday. She has issues. Oh and I get to spend this weekend with her. I keep hoping she’ll turn a corner.