Baby Loss Awareness Week 2022

Baby Loss Awareness Week (9-15 Oct) is now in its 21st year. An opportunity to bring together a community of people who have experienced the loss of a baby directly or indirectly, the aim is to create a safe space for those who wish to share their experiences and feel they are not alone and raise awareness of pregnancy and baby loss amongst the wider community.

According to UNICEF, an estimated 1.9 million babies were stillborn at 28 weeks of pregnancy or later in 2021, with a global stillbirth rate of 13.9 stillbirths per 1,000 total births. Alongside this, an estimated 23 million miscarriages occur every year worldwide, translating to an estimated 15% of pregnancies that lead to miscarriage.

Baby Loss Awareness Week holds great significance and an opportunity to share and reflect on experiences for those wishing to mark it. But if you’re grieving a recent loss, a week-long period focused on that grief can be a particularly difficult and painful time and may be something you wish to acknowledge and experience privately.

Here are some steps to take if you feel you want to avoid it:

Online:

The internet, emails and social media sites can feel especially overwhelming and difficult to avoid, particularly if accounts you follow or receive emails from are likely to post or contact you in the lead up to, or during, Baby Loss Awareness Week.

Everyone grieves differently, and it is perfectly okay to distract yourself from the noise altogether. Take the week off social media (you can mute individual social sites within your phone settings) and try to focus on looking after yourself and doing things that make you feel relaxed – perhaps going out for a walk, focusing on something like baking, crafts or watching TV, or meeting a friend.

If you don’t want to mute social media entirely, you can silence single accounts and particular hashtags temporarily within the individual apps. For example, you may wish to mute hashtags associated with baby loss, or accounts that you think are likely to post about it like baby or pregnancy charities, brands that create products (clothing or food companies for example) for babies, and news/media accounts.

Likewise, you may decide you want to avoid receiving emails about Baby Loss Awareness Week. Many organisations now offer ‘opt out’ options via email, so look out for those in your inbox over the next few weeks. In addition, you could even search ‘Baby Loss Awareness Week’ in the search bar of your email inbox to see which organisations have sent emails mentioning it in previous years and reach out to those companies directly to see if you could be temporarily taken off their correspondence lists.

Offline:

Everyone deals with grief differently. While your friends and family may choose to mark the week on social media and share their experiences with their wider networks, it may be beneficial to let them know that you’re choosing to grieve privately. If you feel able to, inform your friends and family that you won’t be taking part publicly and would rather they didn’t tag you in social posts during that week or discuss it in person. It could help those close to you to understand how you feel and enable them to support you in a way that makes you feel comfortable.

It may be overwhelming to talk to others who are experiencing similar feelings, but knowing that you are not facing it alone and that there are others out there also finding Baby Loss Awareness Week difficult may provide some comfort. Several charitable organisations worldwide help to support those affected by pregnancy loss and the death of a baby. Some, like UK-based Sands, have countrywide networks of local support groups that are often run by bereaved parents and family members, allowing you to meet others and share experiences as part of a knowing community.

If in-person sessions feel too much or are logistically challenging, several organisations also offer online communities, events and Facebook groups where you can engage in conversations with others feeling similar emotions. To find a charitable organisation operating in your own country, searching ‘Baby loss charity [your country]’ often brings up a range of charities offering a variety of services. It is worth being aware that as we are approaching Baby Loss Awareness Week, you may be exposed to people discussing it during their in-person or online sessions.