The death of a child is always devastating affair. Its effect is often felt widely and can have an impact on so many people including the extended family, school friends, and their families, as well as the teachers and staff from their schools. Working through grief can be a poignant process, but it is essential to ensure future emotional and physical well-being. Parental grieving for the loss of a baby involves acute emotional suffering and has implications for the quality of the relationship shared by the bereaved parents, the siblings, and extended family. Bonds that hold a relationship together may be exposed to risks during the mourning process. The distinct forms of mourning between the couple create barriers to excellent communication and increase feelings of vulnerability. There are not only gender differences in dealing with such situations, but also differences between women depending on the type of loss experienced. Men tend to worry, use social support and neglect the situation at home. Women are more likely to see spiritual comfort, use tension-reduction tools, desirous thinking, and find advice from others who have experienced the same loss.
The mourning process takes time and should not be hurried. How long it takes to cope with the grief varies individually. Generally speaking – if a person is working through the grief process – it takes most individuals three to five years to recover from each significant bereavement. There are many ways in which you can help yourself cope during this time: * Ask for assistance and support from family, friends or a support group, and try to express whatever you are feeling, be it anger, guilt or sorrow.
* Accept the fact that there are some things, like death, that are beyond your control, and this can help you as you work through the grief.
* Giving yourself the time and space to grieve is an essential factor in the coping process. Doing this can help you mourn properly and avoid problems in the future.
* Friends can be a valuable source of help and consolation at this time.
* If you are facing difficulties with sleep, your doctor may be able to prescribe tablets that can aid, or possible you doctor may refer you to a counselor if you feel that you need more help in coping with the loss. Exact information, delivered with skill and tender sympathy, while updated on a regular basis, can diminish the parents' sense of helplessness and isolation and sets up a therapeutic alliance.
Parents deal with the trauma of their loss every single day for the rest of their life. When a child passes away – no matter their age – it is not something one ever “gets over” nor can one forget. Parents may feel that they can never recover amply from the loss of a child. The goal is for parents to understand through their grief process that nothing can affect them so deeply. They find that the traumatic anguish they have experienced also created a new character within their “self ”. After the loss they seem stronger than they ever were before – they have been 'through the fire' and are able to survive anything.
John T. Catrett, III Refuge Care Hospice