Books & Articles
Opening one book on Amazon (as an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases) will list many other suggestions on perinatal loss and grief. Here are just a few recommendations:
Bearing the Unbearable "In this poignant, heartrending, and heart-lifting book, Joannne Cacciatore teaches how loss is transformed to peace, devastating grief to active and practical love. Beautifully, beautifully written, Bearing the Unbearable is for all those who have grieved, will grieve, or support others through bereavement.” (Gabor Maté MD)
Carried Within Me: Echoes of Infant Loss from Bereaved Pare nts Local Pittsburgh author Joann Cantrell, also a bereaved mother, understands that infant loss is carried within for a lifetime and hopes that by sharing these intimate narratives of bereaved mothers and fathers who have lost an infant, some recently and others who experienced their loss decades ago, parents will realize that they are not alone.
Holding Avery is a raw exploration of life after the death of a child. Heidi Chandler unapologetically recounts her heartache ― the fears and doubts that come with knowing she is a mother but without a child to care for. The unabashed honesty of her grief will resonate with anyone who has experienced loss and found that the question 'why?' may always go unanswered. But Heidi learns that moving through the tragedy is not impossible.
I Will Carry You In 2008, Angie Smith and her husband Todd (lead singer of the group Selah) learned through ultrasound that their fourth daughter had conditions making her “incompatible with life.” Advised to terminate the pregnancy, the Smiths chose instead to carry this child and allow room for a miracle. That miracle came the day they met Audrey Caroline and got the chance to love her for the precious two-and-a-half hours she lived on earth.
Empty Arms With compassion and sensitivity, the author, who has been there herself, offers practical suggestions and support for the decision-making at the time of the loss and in the days and months that follow. Contains an excellent bibliography and resource section of 10 pages.
Empty Cradle, Broken Heart: Surviving the Death of Your Baby offers reassurance to parents who struggle with anger, guilt, and despair during and after such a tragedy and also has a chapter just for dads
The Prenatal Bombshell does not attempt to convince women to make a particular choice about their pregnancy. It supports them from their choice onwards in a way that is honest, informative, and reliable.
What God Is Honored Here? This is a literary collection of voices of Indigenous women and women of color who have undergone miscarriage and infant loss, experiences that disproportionately affect women who have often been cast toward the margins in the United States of America.
Waiting With Gabriel This memoir is the true story of parents who were told that their unborn baby had an incurable heart condition, confronting them with an impossible decision: to attempt risky surgeries to give their baby a chance at a longer life, or to continue the pregnancy and embrace their baby's life as it would unfold, from conception to natural death. The book also addresses larger issues including questions about heroic medicine; attitudes and practices regarding pregnancy and infant loss; and new dilemmas created by advances in prenatal testing, including what to do if a test reveals a fatal problem.
Ghostbelly is Elizabeth Heineman’s personal account of a home birth that goes tragically wrong—ending in a stillbirth—and the harrowing process of grief and questioning that follows. It’s also Heineman’s unexpected tale of the loss of a newborn: before burial, she brings the baby home for overnight stays.
Opening Up -The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions presents astonishing evidence that personal self-disclosure is not only good for our emotional health, but boosts our physical health as well. The authors also make a compelling case that people can improve their overall health and well-being by writing about troubling feelings and experiences in their second book, Opening Up by Writing it Down: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain.
In Walking the Labyrinth of My Heart, a mother details her pregnancy journey with her daughter who dies an hour after birth of trisomy 18. Her experiences with infertility, motherhood, infant loss and miscarriage unfuse her writing with compassion for all women.
Drawing on Craven’s training as a feminist anthropologist and her experiences as a queer parent who has experienced loss, Reproductive Losses includes detailed stories drawn from over fifty interviews with LGBTQ people (including those who carried pregnancies, non-gestational and adoptive parents, and families from a broad range of racial/ethnic, socio-economic, and religious backgrounds) to consider how they experience loss, grief, and mourning.
A Gift of Time is a gentle and practical guide for parents who decide to continue their pregnancy knowing that their baby's life will be brief.
One in Four Dr. Barbara Toppin reveals the blind eye turned on one of the most prevalent causes of pregnancy loss: thrombophilias, or clotting disorders. Affecting nearly 42% of the population, thrombophilias often go undetected in women, yet are a primary cause of miscarriages. At the same time, they can be treated easily and systematically, as Dr. Toppin shows in her thriving practice and in this book. One in Four shows how thousands of women each year are able to keep their pregnancies under Dr. Toppin's expert guidance—and why you deserve to be as educated as possible about your pregnancy and the choices you make for your and your future family's health.
It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand
When a painful loss or life-shattering event upends your world, here is the first thing to know: there is nothing wrong with grief. "Grief is simply love in its most wild and painful form," says Megan Devine. "It is a natural and sane response to loss." The author offers a profound new approach to both the experience of grief and the way we try to help others who have endured tragedy.
Griefwatch is a publisher and manufacturer of bereavement books and materials used by families and professionals around the country.
Wintergreen Press Healing Hearts eShop support materials and gifts for bereaved parents, family & friends, professional care givers, and others who wish to understand baby loss and who want to help
Research into miscarriage, stillbirth, and premature birth, and provide pregnancy health information to parents.
https://www.tommys.org/
Still Standing, an online magazine whose focus is:
- Giving a voice to grief
- Connecting hearts around the world who have similar life experiences
- Becoming a resource for friends, family, and medical professionals, to know how to support someone enduring child loss and/or infertility
A wish list from bereaved parents to help friends and family support them
http://www.thegoodgrieftrust.org/child/wish-list-bereaved-parents/
The Walking With You Facebook group is a place for families who have experienced the loss of a baby through miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death, or the death of a child. A place to find comfort, hope, peace, and most of all to know that they are not walking this path alone.
Baby memorial book
Book club book list
Articles
Poetry and Stories
Miscarriage Poems
Siblings and Children
The Dougy Center -The National Center for Grieving Children and Families The mission of The Dougy Center is to provide support in a safe place where children, teens, young adults and their families grieving a death can share their experiences. They have also published helpful downloadable papers about how to help children deal with grief.
How Do We Tell the Children? Dr. Daniel Schaefer, working with child psychologists and trauma experts, and drawing on more than three decades of experience with families in crisis, has written a practical guide for anyone who works or lives with children—parents, caregivers, counselors, or teachers—to respond to their inevitable questions about loss and change, life and death. He provides strategies to assist children with grief and trauma and offers time-tested advice and language that children can understand.
Siblings by Heart Move through grief and help your child though the loss of a sibling. Free copy of The Good Grief guide.
EveryStep- Guide to Children's Grief booklet
Grandparents
Grandma's Tears: Comfort for Grieving Grandparents
Healing a Grandparent's Grieving Heart: 100 Practical Ideas After Your Grandchild Dies
Forgotten Tears: A Grandmother's Journey Through Grief
To The Grandparents Who Lost a Grandchild, We See You
Grieving Grandparents Facebook group
Articles
Marriage and Grief
Mourning and Marriage After the Loss of a Child
Sufficient Grace
Resources for Health Care Professionals
Care Provider Fact Sheet (PDF)
Star Legacy Foundation
Research Internationally
