Abbey Harrison works in the stillbirth/pregnancy loss/infant loss/terminations team at a hospital as a social worker. She’s also the talented creator and host of the popular podcast: Why Do You Parent Like That. Here, Abbey so beautifully writes about her job, what she sees every day and what she has learned about the very complex grief of losing a baby.
TW: this piece discusses topics of pregnancy loss and stillbirth, please take care of yourself.
This week is Baby Loss Awareness Week and here at Capsule we’re committed to sharing the stories and information about this topic which is SO important, yet so rarely openly discussed.
In NZ we don’t collect data on the number of miscarriages, but it’s estimated that between 13,000 to 15,000 women experience a miscarriage in NZ every year. That means for every four pregnancies, one ends in miscarriage.
Then, there are the babies who are stillborn – who die during pregnancy or in utero after the 20th week of pregnancy. Each year about one in every 200 pregnancies ends in stillbirth.
The sign on the door is adorned with butterflies and reads: “Do not enter without speaking to a member of staff”. I have spoken to a member of staff, the patients have consented to me being there, but I always second-guess myself for a split second before drawing a deep breath and knocking.
I walk into the room, knowing that I am going to be another blur of a face that stands in front of them on the worst day of their lives. “Hi, my name is Abbey. I’m a social worker in the pregnancy and infant loss team. I’m so sorry that these are the circumstances we’re meeting under. Is now an okay time for a chat?”
In New Zealand, a miscarriage is defined as the loss of a pregnancy before 20 weeks gestation. Post-20 weeks is a stillbirth. There is no official data kept on how many miscarriages occur each year in Aotearoa, but based on the 1-in-4 statistic a rough estimate is that somewhere between 13,000-15,000 women will experience miscarriage every year. There are approximately eight stillbirths for every 1,000 live births, which means in 2024 a rough estimate would be around 467 babies born still.
October 9th-15th is Baby Loss Awareness Week. I am so relieved that there is a push for these experiences to be spoken about more. For so long there has been a cultural taboo on discussing pregnancy loss and stillbirth. In our stoic kiwi culture, we don’t allow for parents who have lost a child to grieve out loud, forcing them to hide their grief in a shameful way.
If a baby is born past 20 weeks gestation, whether they are born still or live for a few hours, their birth is registered. They have names, and birth certificates. Parents get thrown into the deep end of information overload. Do you want a funeral? Do you want your baby to be buried or cremated? Do you have clothing you would like your baby to be buried in? Questions that you never dream of facing when double lines appear on a pregnancy test. These processes and the feelings that come with them are why my job exists, so that there is someone familiar with this journey, with a therapeutic knowledge base, to gently walk parents through this unknown, nightmare territory.
Often when I tell people what I do for work, their response is “I could never do that job. That is just too sad”. And, yes. Obviously it is heartbreaking. My heart breaks for my clients every time, and I don’t think I’d be very good at my job if it didn’t. But what people don’t know is that the grief of losing a baby, like every other human experience, is a ball of multifaceted emotions.
There have been situations where I have sat in rooms with parents who are holding the body of their baby, while all of us laugh so hard we have tears streaming down our faces.
Because humour doesn’t stop where grief starts. I have held babies and stroked their faces, and told them how beautiful they are, because a baby is beautiful whether it is filled with life or frozen in time. Their parents deserve to hear that. I have taken photos of parents holding their baby on their phones, because memories deserve to be captured. Whether those photos are looked at every day, or popped in a box for moments where it doesn’t feel too hard to look at them. And if there is something I keep coming back to after every case of pregnancy loss or stillbirth: that death deserves to be treated with dignity and not tucked away, regardless of how big or small the life was.
I think that stillbirth feels so taboo because it shouldn’t happen. Babies should be born alive and well. But sometimes they aren’t. Because it feels so deeply unnatural, that makes it hard for us as a society to acknowledge. The by-product of that lack of acknowledgement means that parents are going through pregnancy loss and stillbirth and feeling as though there isn’t the space or social script for them to move through their grief openly.
Very early on in my job I was working with a family whose baby died in utero during the third trimester (cause unknown). I visited them after their baby was born (at that gestation the safest option is an induction and birth, like any other labour) I sat down next to the bed, and the mother asked me if I wanted to hold her baby. As I sat there holding their baby, she said to me “you are one of the only people in the world who will ever hold our baby”. Through that conversation I learned that very few people knew that they were having a baby, and that they weren’t planning on telling anyone about their stillbirth because they didn’t want to make people feel uncomfortable. I remember feeling so taken aback at the time. I have learned since then that many people choose not to share their experience of stillbirth and pregnancy loss for exactly that reason. Which can then result in ultimate isolation. Sometimes in my follow up support conversations with parents they’ll say “did that even happen? Was our baby even real?” And I will gently remind them that, yes, their baby was real. Their grief is valid. They don’t have to do this quietly.
If you know someone who has experienced pregnancy loss or stillbirth and they have opened up to you about it, think about how you would approach talking to someone who had lost anyone important to them. You ask questions, and provide space for them to share with you. Stillbirth or pregnancy loss is no different! A question I love to ask families is “tell me a story about your baby” so often parents will light up at the opportunity to talk about a funny scan story, or how the baby kicked like crazy every time mum drank cranberry juice. Just because this little life wasn’t here for very long, doesn’t mean it didn’t leave a big impact. If I am asking questions (in a safe, respectful way, following the parents lead) I am able to provide an opportunity for parents to continue making memories about their baby they didn’t get to make memories with in life.
If you are reading this and have experienced pregnancy or infant loss, I see you. It happened, and it was real. Their legacy lives on through you and your memory of them. You are a parent, and they are your child.
“Kua whetūrangitia koe” (Return, take your place amongst the stars along with your ancestors that adorn the sky) – Māori whakataukī
