Supporting clients through grief is a big part of providing therapy. While grief and loss is a normal part of life, it impacts mental health in so many ways. When working with clients on their grief, it’s crucial that you feel competent to provide that support. This is especially true for pregnancy loss support. Pregnancy loss survivors are an underserved community. And if you work with this community, you are in a unique position to provide much needed validation and care. This post reviews 4 of the best ways to provide targeted pregnancy loss support. If you are interested in learning more, you will find some recommended training and resources at the end of the post.
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Pregnancy Loss Grief
Pregnancy loss survivors go through a unique and often unacknowledged loss experience. Many who experience pregnancy loss don’t get to physically see or hold their baby. This creates a surreal and ambiguous loss experience. Finding words to describe the pain can be challenging. Feeling unsure if you are ‘allowed’ to grieve the loss of someone you never met can complicate the grieving process.
Silence and Stigma
Additionally, societal messages of silence and stigma surround pregnancy loss and this makes it tough to get support. How can you effectively grieve your loss when society acts like it doesn’t count? Not to mention the ways that pregnancy-carrying people are expected to just ‘get over it’ and get ‘back to normal’.
Emotional Pain
For many, there is no ‘normal’ after a loss. There is only confusion, loneliness, guilt, and countless other emotions. The silence pregnancy loss survivors hold is in response to messages from a society that doesn’t understand.
Messages that tell them to put their pain away, be grateful for what they do have, and just keep trying. This dismissal of their very real pain puts them at risk for complicated and prolonged grief experiences, and robs them of much needed social support.
If your client shares with you about their miscarriage, stillbirth or other pregnancy loss, know that it might not have been easy for them to share that. It’s important to be supportive from the gate, offering validation of their loss and acknowledgment of their pain.
The silence pregnancy loss survivors hold is in response to messages from a society that doesn’t understand.
Hayley Wilds, MA, LPC
Mental Health Impact of Pregnancy Loss
As mentioned above, processing grief related to pregnancy loss in Western Society isn’t easy. You are bombarded with messages from loved ones, coworkers, and society. Many of those messages tell you to move on, keep your pain to yourself, and just ‘stay positive’. And while positivity has its place, it should not be at the cost of expressing very real emotional pain.
Many pregnancy-carrying people who go through loss absorb these messages and subsequently internalize their grief. They may get the sense that their feelings are wrong. That they shouldn’t ‘still’ be so upset about their loss. That they should feel better by now; they didn’t even know their baby.
But these societal messages don’t line up with how they feel inside. The feelings don’t magically go away because someone says ‘don’t give up’ or ‘everything happens for a reason’. And when you feel like you can’t share how you really feel, you do a lot of holding and suppressing.
Mental Health Symptoms of Pregnancy Loss
That’s where you see the impact on mental health. Emotional holding and suppression takes a toll. Feeling alone in your pain, or that your pain is ‘wrong’, complicates your natural grieving process. You might develop what the DSM refers to as prolonged grief disorder.
Whether or not you buy into the idea of a grief disorder, it’s clear that suppressing the brain and body’s natural instinct to express grief pain does have an impact on mental health. Some of the mental health symptoms that arise include:
- Anxiety/Panic Attacks
- Depression
- Intense Emotional Pain
- Intrusive/Racing Thoughts
- Intense Loneliness
- Suicidality
- Rigid Avoidance of Reminders of Pregnancy/Baby
Benefits of Pregnancy Loss Support
Research shows that social support can be a protective factor when it comes to managing grief and loss. Additional pregnancy loss support benefits include:
- Reduced Anxiety and Stress
- Improved Grief Expression
- Decreased Loneliness
- Development of Healing Grief Rituals
- Decreased Intensity of Emotional Pain
- Improved Cardiovascular, Endocrine, and Immune System Functioning
4 ways to Provide Pregnancy Loss Support
As a fellow therapist who works with those who have gone through pregnancy loss, and as a pregnancy loss survivor with lived experience, I can tell you firsthand that getting support from a validating therapist can make a huge difference in someone’s grief experience.
There is nothing you can do to take the pain away. You can’t bring their baby back. But you can give your client a sacred space to share their story, be heard, and begin to heal.
Here are 4 ways to provide that much needed pregnancy loss support to your clients. See the end of the post for more recommendations on resources and training to further develop your competency in this area. And thank you for your interest in supporting this special community. 💟
1. Provide Validation and Acknowledgment
As mentioned before, Western society has a tough time with pregnancy loss. It’s taboo to talk about your baby who died. There’s stigma around sharing pregnancy news too early and consequently, talking about a loss if it occurs. If you honor your baby who died, people get uncomfortable.
Well-meaning loved ones might throw what I like to call ‘gratitude platitudes’ your way. They often say things like ‘everything happens for a reason’, or ‘you have to stay positive’, or any statement that starts with “At least…”.
More likely than not they just want to get through the situation where they find out about your loss and don’t know what to say and they feel anxious and they just want you to feel better. But it often results in you feeling worse.
Creating Sacred Space
As their therapist, you are uniquely positioned to give them something different. You can create space for their grief and their emotional pain. You can validate their loss and acknowledge their pain.
Carve out session time to let your client tell their story, share what it’s like to endure those platitudes, and talk about the loneliness of it all – give them space to breathe and grieve.
Carve out session time to let your client tell their story, share what it’s like to endure those platitudes, and talk about the loneliness of it all – give them space to breathe and grieve.
Hayley Wilds, MA, LPC
2. Incorporate a Guided Journal
Grief is chaotic, slippery, and hazy with emotional pain. And grief is dynamic, with intensity ranging from what can feel like a devastating tornado to a dense blanket of fog.
Bringing a little structure to the overwhelming fluidity of grief can be extremely valuable in the therapy room. Simple journal prompts can bring forth powerful thoughts and feelings that clients didn’t know they needed to express. Expressive arts prompts can access pieces of an experience when words fall short.
Using a guided journal as a supplement to grief work is an effective way to set the pace and allow the client to direct the grief therapy.
A Grief Journal Designed for Pregnancy Loss
After enduring my own convoluted experience with pregnancy loss, rainbow baby motherhood, and secondary infertility, I started working with women who were on a similar path.
I was inspired by all of my experiences, both personal and professional, to create a guided journal specifically for pregnancy loss.
I was inspired by all of my experiences, both personal and professional, to create a guided journal specifically for pregnancy loss. I filled it with over 100 creative prompts, including writing prompts and expressive arts prompts.
Click below to get this grief journal for your practice.
As an art therapist, certified grief pro, and pregnancy loss survivor, this journal is the book I wish I had at the start of my grief and loss journey. And I hope it helps other pregnancy-carrying people along theirs.
3. Help Design a Grief Ritual
Grief rituals a key part of the grieving process. They offer a way to express grief emotion, establish a healing activity or tradition, and pay tribute to the lost loved one. Helping your client develop grief rituals that serve their healing process can be a great way to support them.
BUT – it’s crucial that you allow your client to take the lead on this. Do your best not to force something before they are ready, or push for a ritual that doesn’t fit for them. The best scenario is one where the client brings it up on their own and uses you as a sounding board to design and shape the grief tribute.
However, it can be appropriate to make suggestions. Just be make it clear that the decision is totally up to them.
Pregnancy Loss Grief Rituals
Here are a few examples of grief rituals for pregnancy loss:
- Memory Box
- Candlelight Vigil
- Baby Naming Ceremony
- Memorial Garden
- Anniversary Celebration on Baby’s Due Date or Death Date
- Keepsake Jewelry
- Miscarriage Tattoos
For more ideas, check out my book, Creative Healing for Pregnancy Loss.
4. Recommend a Support Group
Social support is a crucial part of grief healing. It’s a protective factor against mental health issues that can become serious following a loss. It’s the antidote to loneliness.
When it comes to pregnancy loss grief, social support can be tricky and hard to come by. Loved ones that surround you might not have lived experience with pregnancy loss. This can impact the quality of the support they are able to give.
That’s why finding a support group of people who have been through pregnancy and infant loss can make all the difference.
Here are a couple organizations that offer online support groups for pregnancy loss:
Recommended Training and Resources
As mentioned above, support groups can be a key support for pregnancy loss. And many of the organizations that provide support groups also offer valuable training and resources. Additionally, there are some amazing podcasts and books on pregnancy loss that I highly recommend to further your education.
Organizations & Resources
Pregnancy Loss Resource Collection [My Personal Collection of the Best Pregnancy Loss Resources I’ve come across]
Center for Creative Counseling [My Private Practice] – I offer virtual and in person training on topics related to pregnancy loss. CEs available in some cases.
The Pregnancy Loss Grief Group [My Facebook Group for Pregnancy Loss Survivors]
Podcasts
Worst Girl Gang Ever
Joyful Mourning
The Miscarriage Therapist
Finding Hope After Loss
Books
Creative Healing for Pregnancy Loss: A Guided Journal of Creative Prompts
By Hayley Wilds, MA, LPC
At a Loss: Finding Your Way After Miscarriage, Stillbirth, or Infant Death
By Donna Rothert, PhD
Unexpecting: Real Talk on Pregnancy Loss
By Rachel Lewis
It’s OK That You’re Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn’t Understand
By Megan Devine
Thank you so much for reading. I wish you the best in providing support for your clients managing pregnancy loss grief. Sign up for the newsletter for more resources and creative therapy ideas. 😊
References
Bellhouse, C., Temple-Smith, M. J., & Bilardi, J. E. (2018, October 29). “It’s just one of those things people don’t seem to talk about. . .” women’s experiences of social support following miscarriage: a qualitative study. BMC Women’s Health, 18(1). from this resource link
Bindeman, J. (2022, October 14). Pregnancy and infant loss: Effective strategies to support grief and treat trauma, anxiety, and depression in bereaved parents [Slide show; Virtual Training]. Psychotherapy Networker. from this resource link
Cacciatore, J., Thieleman, K., Fretts, R. C., & Jackson, L. B. (2021). What is good grief support? Exploring the actors and actions in social support after traumatic grief. PLOS ONE, 16(5), e0252324.
Rothert, D. (2019, October 2). At a Loss: Finding Your Way After Miscarriage, Stillbirth, or Infant Death. Open Air Books.
