Helping Families Create Keepsakes When a Baby Dies.

PSYCHOLOGICAL adaptation; ART; BEREAVEMENT; SIBLINGS; CHILDBIRTH teachers; FAMILIES; GRANDPARENTS; INFANT death; MEDICAL personnel; MEMORY; PHOTOGRAPHY; RITES & ceremonies; WORLD Wide Web; PATIENTS' families

This article examines the importance of childbirth educators helping families who experience the death of a baby create tangible mementos. It explains how and why memory making activities help not only parents but also siblings and grandparents grieve in healthy ways, enabling the deceased baby to be integrated into the fabric of their lives. Suggestions are provided that go beyond photographs and hand/footprints that bereaved parents are typically given, as well as ways to creatively use the hopes and dreams parents have for their baby to provide unique keepsakes. Finally, this article shares tips that will empower nurses and other professionals to present choices in ways that encourage bereaved families to make the most of the brief time they have to spend with their babies, and offers ideas and suggestions for ways parents who were not given memory making opportunities at the hospital to create mementos in future years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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