Companioning At A Time Of Perinatal Loss

Intended for nurses, doctors, midwives, social workers, chaplains, and hospital support staff, this guide gives caring and practical advice for helping families grieve properly after losing a child at birth. As the special needs of families experiencing perinatal loss are intense and require more than just the bereavement standards in most hospitals, this handbook offers tips and suggestions for opening up communication between caregivers and families, creating a compassionate bedside environment, and helping with mourning rituals. Encouraging continual grief support, these specific companioning strategies can help ease the pain of this most sensitive situation.

The death of a baby is one of the most painful experiences anyone can imagine. This practical, compassionate text guides professionals in providing the best possible care through the physical and emotional pain of a pregnancy loss from early miscarriage to neonatal death, enabling patients and their families to grieve. Written by two professionals with extensive experience in the field, the book inspires confidence for those confronted with this challenging task. It focuses on common issues that inhibit good care and addresses the traditionally difficult topics. Healthcare staff assisting patients during this time often require support of their own and this is also addressed with constructive, inspirational approaches and ideas for professional training. Perinatal Loss: a handbook for working with women and their families offers insights, information and support for managing pregnancy loss for all professionals and students including nurses, sonographers, midwives, doctors (including obstetricians and general practitioners), chaplains and morticians. 'This is an important and warmly welcomed book which thoroughly endorses the key aims of Sands (Stillbirth & Neonatal Death Society). In particular, it demonstrates a forceful commitment to improving care for bereaved families whilst acknowledging the difficult task that staff undertake when caring for them. This handbook encompasses all aspects of perinatal loss, giving due care and attention to the many different circumstances and exploring the thoughts and feelings which are experienced when a baby dies at any gestation.' From the Foreword by Julia Gray

There is a silence surrounding loss and it is time we break the silence. One in four pregnancies end in loss. With statistics like that we should be having more conversations. So let's start shifting the silence so we can better support families during their time of perinatal loss.Intended for Midwives, Doulas, Nurses, Birth Photographers, and other front line birth professionals, this handbook gives advice for helping families through grief, loss, and unexpected outcomes during the perinatal period. Losing a child is a catastrophic event many families hope they will never encounter. The first step to supporting someone in the bereavement process is knowledge. This handbook covers the different forms of loss, why the grieving process is important and how front line birth professionals can aid in making the experience meaningful for families. Learn bereavement strategies to help clients in their time of need.

Coping with Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Infant Death.

This guide for counselors and lay caregivers explores the art of caring for the dying and their families. Based on the tenets first articulated by renowned grief educator Dr. Alan Wolfelt, this respectful and gratifying guide to caregiving includes personal accounts that debunk the myth of the "good death" and teach caregivers to find the transformative potential of every moment in every experience. Written with wit and illustrated throughout with the author's poetry and artwork, it includes advice for comforting patients and their families as well as advice for dealing with the internal stress common to the profession. The guidance provided will help counselors feel affirmed in their abilities to "be with" the dying and support them and their families.

Everything doesn't (always) happen for a reason. Infertility and pregnancy loss can be devastating, yet both are often private sorrows for the one in six people who cope with the experience. This collection offers personal stories about what it's like to go through the emotional and physical facets of infertility, miscarriage, and pregnancy loss: the pain, sadness, and desperation, the hope, humour, and frustration. Through, Not Around offers reassurance to those in the midst of their own struggles that they are not alone and that it is possible to find acceptance and strength on the other side of grief. The way forward is by going through the grief, not around it. Allison McDonald Ace, Ariel Ng Bourbonnais, and Caroline Starr are co-founders of The 16 Percent, a website dedicated to sharing stories of pregnancy loss and infertility. To read or share your story, visit the16percent.ca.

Renowned author and educator Alan Wolfelt redefines the role of the grief counselor in this guide for caregivers. His new model for "companioning" the bereaved gives a viable alternative to the limitations of the medical establishment, encouraging counselors and other caregivers to aspire to a more compassionate philosophy. This approach argues that grief need no longer be defined, diagnosed, and treated as an illness but rather should be an acknowledgement of an event that forever changes a person's worldview. Through careful listening and observation, the caregiver learns to support mourners and help them help themselves heal.

Our Only Time was created to motivate, inspire and show appreciation for medical professionals through experiences told from a patient's perspective. Through heartfelt stories, families share the sacred time spent with their baby ¿ whether in utero or after birth ¿ and offer insights into how medical professionals positively impacted their experience. Also included are recommendations on how best to be supportive of patients and what types of actions to avoid during this devastating experience.Through these incredibly intimate stories of loss, medical professionals can better understand a grieving family's experience and become equipped to support bereaved parents when they leave the hospital without their baby. Medical professionals will come away with new insights on how to guide parents, empowering them to have the least amount of regret during this loss, and allowing for the greatest chance of healing in their grief as they re-enter the world.