As a partner, you might be expected to take the lead role in telling family and friends, liaising with health professionals, making funeral arrangements and supporting the birth mother. This can feel overwhelming, particularly when you are also grieving for your baby. Consider asking for help when you can. You might like to speak with one or two close family members or friends and ask them to tell others. They can also answer questions on your behalf. You may prefer to send an email or text, or put some information on social media to more distant friends and relations, telling them about your baby, what has happened, and how you would like them to make contact and support you in the coming weeks and months.
If your baby died around the due date, people are usually eagerly awaiting your news and are enthusiastic to hear about the baby. If you phone family and friends you could start by saying, “I have some very sad news.”. This can help set the tone for the conversation and may reduce the number of inappropriate and upsetting questions. You can also set expectations about the length of the conversation, by saying “I can only talk for a few minutes,” at the beginning, which may help you end the call when it feels right for you. If your baby died in neonatal care, people around you might have known of your baby’s health problems, but they may still struggle to find the words.
Your family and friends may just not know what to say to you. As your news will be upsetting to other people, and perhaps even trigger difficult memories of their own, you might feel you want or have to support them or apologise for upsetting them. It is important to remember that this is your experience of baby loss and you need to receive support at this time rather than provide it to your wider group of family and friends.
Try not to feel that you have to answer everyone’s questions. Say only as much as you feel able. Later, you could follow up your calls or texts with emails providing more information and outlining any help you may need. You may want to ask people to help you look after any other children you have and to support you in carrying out daily activities like cleaning and cooking. People are often keen to help and appreciate clear requests and boundaries. For example, you could say, “Please could you bring food around on Thursday and you are welcome to join us”, or “If you don’t mind we are not really up to conversation or eating together, but having you bring over a meal would be lovely.”
You could also ask people to help you talk with any other children you have about the death of their sibling. There is more information about this in the Supporting Children section.
You may want to tell people what you would like them to say on your behalf, including whether and how you want to be contacted in the first few days. For example, you might prefer for people to send cards, texts or emails rather than phone you. These preferences can be communicated on your behalf. It is possible that you don’t know what you need or would like people to say on your behalf and we are here to support you through this.
Besides communicating with family and friends, you may need to communicate with people outside your family in the days after your baby has died.
There may be conversations to be had with employers, council officials, hospital staff, benefits agencies, life insurance companies, funeral directors or other agencies.
Take your time talking to them and explain what has happened early on, so they can be as supportive as possible.
If you need help working out what to say, please consult our website for a list of useful organizations that can help with many practical aspects around loss.