Assigning blame is a common and normal response in situations that feel out of your control. Here, we explore strategies for supportive communication during this unimaginable time.

As the experts and care providers, parents look to you for knowledge, medical care, and support. The language you use to communicate the diagnosis shapes how heard, supported, and validated a parent feels.

What you and your significant other are experiencing is not an easy process, so it makes sense that you might experience some breakdowns in communication and, as a result, some conflicts.

This day is about pausing to hold space for the babies whose lives ended too soon. It is about entering in and remembering the parents, their love for their child, and their desire to honor that baby.

The primary purpose of prenatal counseling is to educate and equip parents to make informed decisions in the months ahead.

While there will likely be many decisions that have to be made in the moment during labor, delivery, and postpartum care, a birth plan serves to help you ensure that your parents’ wishes are honored.

Agency is the ability or capacity a person has to act within an environment or a given set of circumstances. Medical professionals, you are a major character in the worst moments a family’s life, and that role comes with tremendous responsibility.

Like grief, pregnancy after loss is a sensitive time. It is a new and transformative experience, and as the network of support walking with parents through this experience, a level of self-awareness is necessary.

No matter if you are the mother or father, or this is your first or third pregnancy after loss, your experience matters.

Grief is a complicated emotion because it can leave a family with fear and sorrow, but it can also create perspective that gives families a whole new understanding of the precious and not promised nature of pregnancy and childbirth.

A father’s role is vital to the well-being of the mother, and in order to ensure that fathers can care well for and support their partners, their paternal needs and grief cannot be ignored.

If you are not currently or have never been an employer of a person facing a life-limiting prenatal diagnosis or the loss of their baby, this insight is still helpful for you. After reading this post, I encourage you to consider putting some guidelines in place to ensure that, if the time comes when you do have an employee facing these experiences, you will be ready.