Mainstream press about stillbirth is always a welcome surprise, and though I'm a bit late to pointing this out, the NY Times published a piece about stillbirth on August 15th. I'm happy to see it, though I have to take issue with some of the language used, like this paragraph:
"It often is a devastating experience. “As soon as they learn they are pregnant, most women consider their unborn baby their child, and for many a stillbirth is like the death of a child,” said Dr. Robert Goldenberg, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Drexel University College of Medicine."
It isn't often a devastating experience, it is a devastating experience. And a stillbirth is not "like" the death of a child, it is the death of a child! My son was full-term, full-size, perfect and ready to go home, except that he was dead. He was a perfect child who happened to die three days before he was due.
While this article is welcome and necessary, we still, as a society, need to work on the language we use to describe stillbirth. But maybe we are starting to get there.
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4 comments:
Ack, this is horribly clumsy - and coming from an obstetrician makes it so much worse. I also hate how our babies are often referred to as "stillborns". No, they are babies. Our babies. Yes they WERE stillborn or yes we did go through A stillbirth, but they were not stillborns. She is my daughter. He death WAS and still IS devastating.
Still, I guess some press is better than none.
xo
Hope's Mama, it is horribly clumsy, a terribly poor choice of words. Surprising and yet not--little about this topic surprises me anymore, how it is handled by others (or not handled). But I do think people are becoming more aware--not fast enough, I know.
Hello again Virginia! I lost a baby at the early stage of my pregnancy in 2004 -I was 10 weeks pregnant. It was difficult. I can't imagine what you must have been through with a full-term pregnancy. I thought that I could share a poem I wrote at the time. Hugs from London.
To my unborn baby
Whom I'll never know
My star My angel
Where did you go?
Who decides and why?
I couldn't even fight
And make you come back
I'm left here alone
With a dark secret
And my lost love
Let's hope that one day
I will be in peace
Able to accept
Able to forgive
And be more human
Muriel, thank you for sharing--the poem is beautiful.
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