Question

The month of October, and specifically October 15th, is dedicated to Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance. It is estimated that more than 15% of pregnancies in the U.S. ended in either or miscarriage or stillbirth.The death of a child between the age of birth and 1 is much lower (less than 1% of all live births), the loss is keenly felt for the survivors. Sadly, even though many people mean well, their comments to couples who have suffered a miscarriage are often unhelpful and sometimes callous and dismissive. With so many people who have suffered a miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant loss, we need to be mindful of what we say to grieving parents. What are some of the unhelpful messages and what can be said instead? How can such grief become disenfranchised and how can disenfranchised grief impact the person in mourning?

Answer 1

Unhelpful messages like be patient, do not cry or things will be good with time are unhelpful to grieving parents.One can be helpful to grieving parents by listening to the parents.

Offer your support to the family.Ask what you can do for the grieving person by asking them for household arrangement or any other help like helping with any bill or paper work.

Making eye contact while talking and giving warm hug can help the parents,it gives warmth to the parents.

Invite parents for social gatherings and ask them to tal about their loss so as they can express their feelings.

Comments like ,"you can become parents again,both of you are young''," at least you survived " shows rudeness and how unimportant their loss is to others.

Disenfranchised grief is type of grief which is not accepted or understood by society.it is grief which is not accepted by family and society,people around set a time limit to overcome it very fast.It is hidden grief or sorrow that goes unacknowledged or unvalidated by social norms.This kind of grief is hard to process and work through.

Grief typically progress through various stages,basically it has five stages.If one cant go through mourning stage then the stage of acceptance will never come easily,it is hard to proceed through these stages in a productive way.

It leaves the person with mixed emotions and cause sadness,guit,fear,anxiety resulting in insomnia.It disturb the working pattern of person.It can have multiple effects like depression,emotional disturbances,withdrawal from society, neurological impairments, psychosomatic illness and low self confidence.Compared to others people with disenfranchised grief tend to abuse substances and have difficulty forming healthy relationships with family and friends.