The Church and loved ones can support grieving parents following miscarriage, stillbirth or infant loss
By Laura and Franco Fanucci
"How many kids do you have?”
The simplest question is still the hardest. Do we give the easy answer or the honest one?
Eight years ago, we lost a baby to miscarriage. Five years ago, our twin daughters died days after birth. Even though we have a busy home today, their absence has redefined our family. “We’re raising five boys” or “We have five children at home,” we often say. Both are true, yet incomplete. The truth is that we have eight children, and three of them are gone.
Miscarriage, stillbirth and infant loss are more common than many realize. As many as 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in miscarriage before 20 weeks of pregnancy. Stillbirth (the death of a baby before birth, after 20 weeks of pregnancy) and infant mortality rates vary by country, but in the United States, about 24,000 babies are lost each year to stillbirth and the same number die in infancy.
Odds are that you know someone who has suffered this great loss — or you have grieved for your own child. How can we as a Church support grieving parents in their pain?
The authors spend final moments with their newborn daughter Abby in 2016. Abby and her twin sister, Maggie, were born at 24 weeks and died within two days.
SPIRITUAL CONSOLATION
The Catholic Church honors each child from the moment of conception — and also mourns with those who mourn. Scripture tells us, “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living. For he fashioned all things that they might have been” (Wis 1:13-14). Yet God sometimes permits suffering to happen, while still vowing to “destroy death forever” at the end of time (Is 25:8).
The mystery of God’s will in allowing suffering and death, especially of children, is often hard to understand and accept. But parents can find comfort in God’s promise of eternal life. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we read: “Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: ‘Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,’ allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism” (1261).
The Church offers a “Blessing of Parents after a Miscarriage or Stillbirth,” as well as official funeral rites for infants, whether they were baptized or died before baptism. But many parents still find themselves feeling isolated or adrift after the loss of a baby. READ MORE…