An invisible problem

Image:BBC News

Yesterday was Mother's Day in the United States. Faces of Loss asked Bloggers to blog about Mother's Day. I feel that women who have lost babies, especially if they have suffered a stillbirth often find days like Mother's Day very hard to bear. I would say it is worse if they have no other children. A small part of the problem is that other people (some not all) do not acknowledge how they feel on these days and it is this that I am going to focus on.

I found this article online recently - Stillbirths: the invisible public health problem. It quotes lots of statistics and facts I already knew, but I really like the title. I feel is true, stillbirth is invisible. Everyone has heard of cot death, every mother is at least a tiny bit scared of it yet more women have a stillbirth than lose a baby to cot death. Whilst I am not trying to say cot death doesn't deserve it's publicity, it does, but I think stillbirth deserves more publicity than it currently gets.

Okay so I am not suggesting that the media produces lots of sad articles about stillbirth on Mother's Day, obviously that isn't going to happen. But perhaps if stillbirth was mentioned more in the media during the year then the general public would be more aware of it. And if the general public are aware of stillbirth - of how common it is and how it changes those affected by it for life - then perhaps they would be able to help people who have had stillbirths feel a little better on days such as Mother's Day.

Sometimes the parents of stillborn babies don't want to commemorate Mother's Day but I believe even if they are doing nothing special that day a simple acknowledgement of the loss would be appreciated. A few words would help them feel as if their baby hasn't been forgotten and that other people recognise that they are still a mother even though their baby isn't with them any more.

And eventually you never know maybe stillbirth will no longer be an invisible problem.