Friday Q&A on Handling Baby Loss with Rowena Pailing from Sands

0:28Zoe and Georgia will be here in just a moment with Made by Mummers. know you're born on your podcast app and hit follow so new episodes land straight in your feed. Hello and welcome to Made by Mamas the podcast. I'm Zoe Hardman and I'm Georgia Dayton and this is your parenting safe space where no conversation is off limits. With five kids between G and I, we have seen a lot. We really have. Each week we'll be joined by some famous faces and experts and we'll chat about the brands and products that have saved us along the way. In short, We're the parenting podcast for you. Before we get started, hit subscribe or follow so you're the first to know when each episode lands.

1:05And they're on Tuesdays and Fridays. And it really helps if you leave a rating and a review. You can also find us on Instagram. We're on at Made by Mummers. But for now, George, should we get into it? We wanted to let you know there is a trigger warning on today's episode where we do discuss baby loss. So if you feel like this is not the episode for you right now and you want to come back to it at a later date, please do just know we're sending you all the love in the world. Welcome to Friday's episode of the podcast. Now, today is World Mental Health Day, and this week is also Baby Loss Awareness Week.

1:39So we really wanted to get somebody in the studio to have a conversation with us about how we can support somebody going through such a difficult time. For people struggling, any advice, we need an expert to kind of really shed light on if you haven't experienced baby loss, yourself but maybe one of your friends has gone through it you know a relative it's one of those subjects which potentially we could shy away from yeah because we don't really know what to say and if you are going through it you need help in that area so we really wanted to get an expert on the podcast today to kind of give us an insight into all of those subjects all of those topics and give us some proper advice and tips please welcome Rowena Paling head of bereavement support at SANS.

2:24Rowena, hello. Hello, thank you so much for having me. It's lovely to be with you. Oh no, thank you for coming on. Just before we get into the chat, do you want to just tell us, tell the listeners and us a little bit about what you do day to day and also like what the charity does? Yes, of course. So I am Head of Breedment Support Services at SANS. SANS as a charity does a number of things, but essentially we're here to support anyone who is affected by pregnancy or baby loss and that's right through from an early miscarriage through loss in later pregnancy or if somebody's baby has died shortly after they've given birth we support anyone in any of those situations most of the people who we support are parents but we support other family members as well grandparents siblings aunts and uncles but also often friends colleagues get in touch with us because they're not quite sure how they can be supporting and so we're here to to provide advice for them and we work really closely with health care professionals to try and ensure that if sadly somebody loses a baby they get the best possible care in hospital as well so so we work with them in terms of the hospital environment but we also support all kinds of research to try and understand why it is that sadly some people have miscarriages or babies die um so that we can try and stop that from happening in the future and and i i sort of i mentioned it there in the intro that you know baby loss doesn't just impact the person that's going through it that you know it's it's obviously the extended family chosen family and and and actual family that just don't know what to say, how to support the worst time of your life.

4:17And I thought, you know, George and I really, we always do something around Baby Loss Awareness Week because it's so helpful to kind of get the right information and get some advice on what we say and how we can be there for them. So I imagine you get a lot of kind of inquiries about that as well. We do, definitely. And I think for family members, it's complicated because they want to support the bereaved parents, but they often also feel bereaved themselves, particularly when we hear from grandparents. Obviously, they're grieving for the baby who's been lost, but they're also really sad because of how their own children, the baby's parents, are feeling.

4:59So it kind of hits those people, I think, in two ways, definitely. And I guess it must be difficult to know how to navigate a situation like that because you, you know, I mean, me personally, if one of my friends or, you know, someone is going through something, I want to be there to like talk about positives and bring them, you know, do that sort of thing. But that's not always what people want. And I think until you kind of know how someone's feeling or what they need from you, it can be really difficult to get it right. I think you're absolutely spot on there. And what we always say is to try as much as possible to take the lead from the parents.

5:42And if you can be as open as possible and say, look, you know, what do you need me to do to listen to what they're saying? Then you're able to respond in the way that helps them most. but I think for a lot of people who haven't had personal experience of pregnancy or baby loss there's a real fear of saying the wrong thing and this massive kind of sense that if I say the wrong thing I'm going to make it worse so it's better if I shouldn't say anything at all but what we would always always always say is that one of the key things around pregnancy and baby loss is that it can be incredibly isolating because there isn't that conversation happening about it and to be honest whatever somebody says they're very very unlikely to make the situation even worse because the worst possible thing has already happened to those parents so obviously we have got advice around starting a conversation we've got advice on phrases which are good and phrases which perhaps are best not to use but if at all possible if people can reach out to bereaved parents ask them how they're feeling say that they're there for them then it just opens that conversation and if they get it wrong they get it wrong and the parent will tell them they've got it wrong and they can apologize for that but so much better to try and say the wrong thing than not to speak about it at all my sister went through um very sadly she went through early menopause and it left her completely infertile so it's a slightly different feeling but she's still grieving a child that she never had and I remember my mum vividly picking the phone up to me in floods of tears and saying I'm grieving the grandchild that I'm never going to get so it's a slightly different different situation obviously but still I wish I'd known how to handle it because none of us just really spoke about it again.

7:40And it's only come up recently where she's gone, you know, you've become a mother. And I just never have. It's just so, so, so sad. So I think this will help a lot of people, a lot of people going through it in various different guises. We've got loads of questions in, George. Do you want to kick us off? Yeah, I think actually we might as well sort of continue on the same track because there's been a lot of questions. How to support a friend through recurrent miscarriage, I feel so helpless how to support a friend going through baby loss so just you know takeaways for anyone listening what what should we be doing so obviously everybody is different but I would say there are there are two key things the first is to open up the conversation and be prepared to talk about it if the person wants to talk about it.

8:38Now obviously some people are really private, they don't want to talk about what's happened to them but many people really do and feel that they can't because either there isn't a safe space where they're able to or they don't know how their friends might react but actually if your friend has had a miscarriage or if your friend has lost a baby then actually to be able to say to them look do you want to talk, do you want to go for a coffee is just a way of knowing that they can rather than keeping everything inside and feeling additionally isolated so opening up the conversation being prepared to talk is a really key thing I think the other thing is if you're going to offer practical help when somebody experiences pregnancy or baby loss it is really really hard and understandably the brain sort of starts to work in a different way and some of the things that we might normally be able to do day by day actually become a real issue it's really difficult to make decisions it can be really difficult to process information because that traumatic experiences is affecting how the brain works so it's really lovely to be able to offer practical help but if you offer practical help if you can be specific then that stops the person having to make decisions or think for themselves oh you know what could they do so um a lot of people will say and this is so lovely they'll say if there's anything i can do to help let me know but if you say that then the parents still kind of got to make a decision and think to themselves what do i need i don't know what i need yeah whereas if you say look would you like me to bring around a meal for you so you don't have to cook or would you like me to walk your dog so that you don't have to worry about that or if they've got other children would you like me to take care of your children for a couple of hours so that you can have a bit of time for yourself those really practical but really specific things I think can be so helpful um when somebody's maybe struggling with the day-to-day aspects of life because of the grief these are the acts of service that actually you really need when you're in the depths definitely that's such a good point as well because I'm thinking about all the times that I've sent somebody a message saying if there's anything I can do let me know and actually no one's going to reply to that are they like yeah but please don't you know don't beat yourself up about it because the the important thing is that you've made that offer and the important thing the really important thing is that the person who's grieving knows that you're there and that you're thinking about and that you care I guess we're just thinking about how to make it even better um and that having that specific ask just kind of takes it up a level somebody said here I still can't get over comments that my good friends made after my miscarriage um yeah at least you get more one-on-one time with your first and we'll make you and you'll make the most of being fertile and try again now it's so sad isn't it when um when people have that experience of um not not just where somebody has said something which is a bit thoughtless but where they've said something which is really hurtful and I suppose there are there are two different sort of ways of looking at this one is if if you're bereaved yourself and somebody's said something like that to you what do you do with it if I've got a choice to challenge them on it or just to kind of move on from it and it depends how robust you are feeling really about whether you want to challenge them or not and that's a very a very personal decision and in a sense if you know if you're grieving you shouldn't be put in a position where you've got to think about challenging people um but I think what we're trying to do in SANS as much as possible is to educate the general public about the kind of things to say and not to say and one of the challenges is I think in um in society in general that when something really difficult happens there's a temptation to try and put a positive spin on it yeah and sort of say you know well at least it's it's you know it's okay because the sun is shining or you know whatever or we're only having to eight weeks so you know you're okay or you've already got one baby yeah exactly and and we know that that's just not the case you know if you've got a number of children and one of them died it's terrible you know you wouldn't make a choice about which child it would be um it's you know it's it's just not possible to say something about baby loss um that makes it better or makes it okay so we would always try and encourage people to avoid sentences that begin at least yeah at least at least that has happened because there isn't any at least in terms of baby loss at all and talking about you know having having further children that's a whole different issue in itself for some people it's not possible um for some people they're not sure about whether they want to go through pregnancy again after the experience that they've had for others they really want to so you know we can't make judgments about and we can't make assumptions about people um becoming pregnant in the future yeah great advice um someone has written in here i'm currently pregnant with twins but i have lost one there are no words yeah oh god that is so hard um i'm so so sorry to to hear that and when um when somebody loses a twin um the uh the emotions are really really complex because if there is one twin who survives and that the other twin has died then obviously depending on when it's happened um it could be that one twin has died but that the pregnancy then continues for quite a long time so the person who's pregnant has to literally has to hold both of those things um together which is which is really difficult and the emotions around that but also it means you know if somebody has um twins and uh one of them dies at birth then there's a whole um there's a whole challenge with anniversaries um you know that every year on the birthday the anniversary is going to have different emotions attached to it and be very bittersweet um to put it mildly we'll be right back after this short break

15:39welcome back to this episode of made by mommas now where were we i had an ectopic pregnancy last year and now i'm four weeks pregnant how to cope until my six week scan um ectopic ectopic check basically she's in panic yeah so i guess just to kind of um explain a little bit so an ectopic pregnancy is where the uh the baby starts to develop in the wrong place and normally in the fallopian tube and um if that happens then and the pregnancy isn't sustainable um because it the baby would would grow too large um so i think one of the one of the areas that a lot of people who have lost a baby are really concerned about is what happens if they get pregnant again so obviously the sort of the initial reaction is or one of the initial reactions can be I should say that it's incredibly exciting if somebody becomes pregnant after they've lost the baby this you know has been what they've always wanted they're absolutely delighted but at the same time they can't get away from their previous experience of the pregnancy where the baby was lost so there are often a lot of anxieties um anxieties around particular checks anxieties around particular periods of time so if they lost their previous baby at seven or eight weeks then when they hit seven or eight weeks in this pregnancy that can be a time of of extra anxiety what we would always recommend obviously is um to be absolutely up front with the health care professionals who are looking after you to talk to them about your worries and i think a lot of parents will feel that you know they don't want to make a fuss they don't want people to think they're silly um but actually it's always always always better to get things checked out um than not have them checked out and it's better to do that obviously in case there is something wrong that interventions can take place sooner than otherwise, but also just for your own peace of mind and well-being and, you know, to keep those anxiety levels down, it's really important.

17:57When somebody is pregnant after loss, their maternity notes should be marked to say that they have previously experienced pregnancy or baby loss. In the days when they were mainly pregnancy notes were written on actual pieces of paper then uh sans developed a series of um of stickers so that there was a sticker uh which had a teardrop on it which which would go on on people's medical notes so that immediately a midwife or a doctor could see that they're maybe in a previous pregnancy whereas now obviously most maternity notes are held online but there are still ways of marking them and flagging it for anyone who's looking at those online notes and if you have lost um a baby in a previous pregnancy um the hospital um will be keeping a closer eye on you anyway and there will normally be additional um checks scans appointments during that pregnancy just to make sure that everything is progressing the way that everyone hopes it will but any any issues any concerns at all then obviously just contact um your midwife or the hospital get them take a look and also do you know what a takeaway from what you just said i think if someone that you know is pregnant again after loss it's it's normal for people to feel both things and you can feel both things at the same time you can be like so excited about a new pregnancy while also grieving grieving one that didn't work and also still feeling anxious like you can be all three and it might be that a friend is really excited one day and you know completely lost another day and I think you know taking their lead on how they are yeah and knowing that it might not be straightforward so I mean I've been guilty of it before like with friends you know who've experienced a loss and then they're pregnant again I've been like oh no she's fine now she's totally fine like to other friends and they've been like oh she you know it wasn't like that when I spoke to her you know and and it's actually just the realization that you can be all three things at the same time yeah definitely I think that's so important and it's um and it's true grief generally i would say as well that actually you know there isn't a kind of straight line that grief follows it's not that you go from feeling sad to feeling happy you move between different emotions all of the time and sometimes things can feel okay and you can feel that you're doing well with life and yeah absolutely excited if there's another pregnancy and that's taking place and at other moments it can feel really difficult and that's okay and that's normal and I think that's one of the things that it would be good for people to hear that if they are you know struggling or or yo-yoing with their grief that's normal it doesn't mean that actually they're you know we've got a couple of really beautiful statements actually not questions both of them but the cells of a baby lost stay with you forever I found that really comforting someone's put in I really I really love that statement someone else said no question as in the thick of it currently but thank you all so much for covering it it's such a comfort so that's really it's so important to have these conversations and it's funny and also you know I think from people outside of the immediate bubble that it's not going on with we go about our day to day lives don't we and then the person going through it it's just their whole life their whole life um so it's really important isn't it to keep the lines of communication going like you said Rowena somebody here has put I've experienced a miscarriage at 12 weeks I'm 35 what can I do to reduce the chances of another that's a really difficult question and obviously without knowing their sort of medical history and you know it's it's not something where I can say you know if you do this thing or if you do that thing then you won't have a miscarriage I think there are general pieces of advice for pregnancy about keeping healthy i think um it really depends though on why the miscarriage might have taken place previously and again this is a conversation that they need to have with whoever is looking after their medical care um there are different systems in different parts of the country um to um if you like to investigate why miscarriages take place but if somebody has had three miscarriages then really their doctor should be referring them for additional tests to try and find out what's going wrong and if and if you know what the cause is of the miscarriage then it's much easier to put in some kind of intervention and hopefully just put a subsequent pregnancy unfortunately there are a huge number of miscarriages that take place where actually at this present time nobody necessarily knows why the person miscarried and so really the advice there is to try and make sure that you stay healthy you stay well throughout your pregnancy that you go to all of your medical checks and all of your medical appointments that you keep a close eye on things like your improvements and that you follow all the advice there and that if you have any concerns whatsoever and that you should take those to your midwife or your doctor or the hospital.

23:31We've got one more question here. What if I'm pregnant or having a baby which I am how do I navigate that around my friend who's grieving after baby loss? Gosh that's such a good question. It's really sensitive but I think the fact that somebody has asked that question is great because it means that they are in that mindset of being sensitive to somebody else I think um you know we can't pretend if if somebody is pregnant and they have a friend who's lost a baby they can't pretend that they are not pregnant that's that's just not going to work um not in the long term anyway but I think it's really helpful if they can break the news um sensitively to their friend who's lost the baby and do it privately rather than you know in a great big announcement and also to in a sense give them a bit of an opt-out applause yeah and say to them you know look um i realized that this is something which may be really hard and I appreciate it if you don't want to see my scan pictures or you know all of my kind of happy news um announcements and that's okay I'm still here for you so it's really about giving giving the bereaved parent the um the choice about what they engage with and the more you can do that and more that you can acknowledge that you still recognize the experience that they have had the more able that friendship is to endure and I guess as well if you've experienced baby loss and you've got a friend who you know is pregnant or that you find it really hard to be around I think it's okay to say that to duck out for a bit yeah and protect yourself because I sometimes I mean, sometimes people just have their head in the clouds and they don't realise, which is wrong.

25:30But I think it's fine to say, you know what, I'm so happy for you, but I'm finding it really hard to spend time with you at the moment because of this. And I think, I think that's okay. My sister came off Facebook because she could not bear to see any more pregnancy announcements. It was destroying her. It was breaking her heart. And she was like, I just need a break for six months so that I can fix myself and feel better. Yeah, and that's fine. and that's fine yeah it is hopefully and other gatherings as well i mean it's not people don't always have a choice or don't feel they have a choice about attending family gatherings but if somebody is really struggling and they just don't want to be around family big celebrations other people who are pregnant as you say just that's absolutely okay yeah yeah just don't go you have to protect yourself you really do um rowena thank you so much for coming on the podcast today what a beautiful conversation and and done with such care uh and love so thank you we are we're such um advocates here at made by mommas and kind of trying to be as inclusive as possible on all the subjects this is still a subject which people find very difficult to talk about under the circumstances but i i think you're going to have really helped a lot of people listening today so very grateful to you thank you thank you and just before we go if people are looking for advice and support where um where is best where is it best for them to go brilliant thank you so much for asking that question so at sans we have a free telephone helpline and this is open every day monday to friday from 10 in the morning till three in the afternoon and then again in the evenings on tuesdays wednesdays and thursdays from six until nine and our free phone telephone number is 0808 164 3332.

27:18Alternatively, if somebody doesn't want to phone, and often when people are bereaved, actually they don't necessarily feel able to talk, and you can have more control if you put something in written format, then you can email us at helpline at sans.org.uk. And as I said right at the beginning, we're here for bereaved parents, but not just for grief parents for anyone else friends family colleagues healthcare professionals who are touched or affected by pregnancy or baby loss. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you.