October is Perinatal and Infant Loss Awareness Month in the United States and today, October 15th is World Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.  Miscarriage, stillbirth and infant loss has most likely touched all of us in one way or another, both professionally or personally or often both. In honor of the babies born too early, born still or who passed away after birth, people are asked to light a candle and burn it for an hour at 7 PM local time on October 15th as a way to spread light across the globe and inform, grieving families that they and their children remembered.  Have you considered participating and inviting others to do the same.

One way that perinatal professionals can help families to honor their babies is to inform them that they may be able to have a birth certificate provided by a local/state/province/governmental agency for their child, if they were born after 20 weeks gestation, regardless if they were born alive and then passed or had passed away prior to birth.

Not every local government is able to accommodate this request. In the places that do not yet offer this option, families, care providers and organizations are lobbying governmental agencies with a request to change the regulations and codes to have this be available to them.  Families

feel that receiving such a document validates their experience and makes the statement that their child and their child’s life, no matter how brief, was important. Having governments and municipalities enact legislation that authorizes the issuance of birth and stillbirth certificates is one way that families can feel that their experience is recognized.

Do you know what is the standard in your community?  Are local families able to receive a birth certificate when they experience a fetal death?  More and more places are making this happen, If not where you live, you may want to consider joining forces with others who are working to make this a possibility in every community for every family whose hearts are broken by the loss of a pregnancy or stillbirth.

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