Finding Support Following Pregnancy + Infant Loss

Feb 7

Pregnancy and infant loss is in a loss category of its own. Finding support is essential. Support can come in many forms and a holistic approach to care is often more effective. This is because the lived experience of our love and loss is multidimensional. It touches all aspects of your life and your being.

Your lived experience inevitably includes grief, and it may also include Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (PMADS), trauma, and the unearthing of anything else unresolved (grief or trauma). It is important to understand your grief is not a problem, but sometimes other complicating factors may be adding to your suffering or blocking your grieving process.

Given the complexity of each individual’s experience it is important to find the right support and to know that support will vary depending on your needs. Also, the quality of relationship you have with your provider (trust, connection, safety) will be more a determinant of the effectiveness of your treatment than the treatment itself. Secure, attuned relationships with a compassionate other- matter a great deal.

A little more on Grief

Grief is a natural part of the human experience. It is a bewildering process that is complex, unpredictable, and continuous. Grief surrounding pregnancy and infant loss tends to be more intense, pervasive, and persistent than the grief experienced with other losses.

Your grief literally lives in your body. It is not rationale, nor something you can control or think your way though. Ultimately grieving is a process of transformation and eventually with time and healing work it can lead you to a place of acceptance and meaning. Your grief is the mirror of your love, it is impossible to have one without the other.

Grief is not something that needs to be fixed. You are not broken. You have been broken open and the way to put the pieces back together again is to participate in the grieving process. The only cure for grief is to grieve.

Grief is distinctly personal experience for all. It takes many forms. We do not want to reduce grief to a series of stages, because it is so unique to the individual. However, there are certain phases that you will likely experience and what is important to know is that people move in and out of (cycle through) various stages of grief at different times during the grieving process. The reality is everyone is different. There are many ways to respond to grief, anticipatory grief, and death.

Grief needs a dedicated time and space. This might mean taking time to be with your heartache when bathing, using the restroom, taking a lunch break, driving, falling asleep or upon waking. Look at photos, listen to music, go through your memory box, hold a blanket or stuffed animal. You are entitled to your feelings. Give yourself permission to feel all the feels. It's painful. It requires us to cry, to hurt, to yearn for what is gone.

While feeling nothing can be preferable to the pain of grief and occasional avoidance can help you cope, habitually avoiding or repressing grief, signaled as a prevailing feeling of detachment, will have a detrimental impact on your emotional, mental and physical health.

Find supportive outlets for your grief. Painting, writing, gardening, pottery, knitting, scrapbooking, sharing your story, joining a peer-led support group, run, dance, breathe, mindfulness, spend time in nature, utilize spiritual practices, ritual, and ceremony, and explore continuing bonds and the powerful link between grief and love.

A little more on PMADS

Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (PMADS) are the #1 complication in pregnancy. They are more common than preterm delivery, gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, however, PMADS are rarely discussed nor monitored during standard perinatal care. 1 out of 6 women with “healthy pregnancies” will experience moderate to serious symptoms. If you have prior mental health history, unresolved grief or trauma, infertility challenges, recent life stressors, pregnancy with multiples, NICU stay, traumatic birthing experience, loss these are a few risk factors for PMADS. It is important to note that non birthing parents are at the same risk of anxiety, depression, PTSD and complicated grief following the loss of their baby.

A little more on trauma

“Trauma is not just what happens to us but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.”- Dr. Peter Levine, PhD. Your trauma response happens involuntarily when faced with a threat to survival in the face of helplessness. Anything that is too much, too little, too fast, too slow could be perceived by the brain as a threat. When the alarm is sounded the body readies for action flooding the bloodstream with epinephrine and cortisol preparing for fight or flight. Without the ability to run or fight the energy created during trauma response becomes stuck in the body through the immobility response (freeze/play dead). It is the stuck energy in the body that becomes what we know as maladaptive strategies, disorders or dysregulation which ultimately disconnect us from the present and keep us stuck in the trauma of our past. Trauma work requires a bottom-up approach where the language spoken is that of the felt sense (more on felt sense here). Finding a trauma-informed provider is key when navigating traumatic grief, traumatic birthing experiences, or unresolved trauma from the past.

A little more on holistic support

It is important to create spaces within your body and in your external environment where you can really process your lived experience. This includes the physical body, energy body, mental body, emotional body, and spiritual body. Because the lived experience of your love and loss is multidimensional and it touches all aspects of you, a holistic approach to care is most effective.

Here is a list of alternative care that many parents have found helpful: