Using a group of just 65 women (some 26,000 babies are stillborn each year in the United States alone, or one in every 138 births, according to the National Center for Health Statistics), the study ostensibly sought to determine whether the now common practice of encouraging mothers of stillborn babies to hold their babies had any "beneficial effects on the psychological health of mother and next-born child."

While Dr. Hughes and her colleagues conceded that their methods were flawed -- how is it possible to predict the impact on a woman's long-term mental health through short-term observation? -- and that a follow-up study is necessary, they concluded that holding the babies had no beneficial effects on the mothers because the women in the study appeared to be upset, disoriented and shocked.

"Our overall impression was that most mothers were shocked, and had no clear plan of how to manage the situation: they simply went along with whatever was expected of them," Dr. Hughes and her colleagues wrote in the Lancet. "[W]e speculate that sometimes, seeing and holding the dead infant further traumatises a woman who is already intensely distressed and physically exhausted."

Numbers and methods aside, the most fundamental flaw of the study is the implication that exhibiting grief and anxiety when faced with a stillborn baby is somehow unnatural, that negative reactions to a baby's death can and should be avoided, and that one way to avoid pain is to keep the baby out of sight, to prevent any memories from forming, and to not talk about the tragedy.

These findings directly contradict more than 30 years of well-established medical and psychological evidence indicating that seeing or holding her stillborn baby is integral to a mother's ability to work through her grief.

"Just as in the usual bonding process, there is a transformation from one's attachment to an unseen, 'inside' baby to a visible touchable 'outside' child," wrote Irving Leon and Erna Furman in their 1990 book "When a Baby Dies: Psychotherapy for Pregnancy and Newborn Loss."

"Parents are better able to accept the reality of their child's death if they view the baby's body," they continued, citing numerous scientific studies that corroborate this. "The mother's heightened attachment to her unborn child as he begins to move within her body may make the touching and holding of his lifeless body especially important in facilitating mourning.

"Viewing the dead baby provides a tangible form through which her love for her unborn child can be expressed or mourned," they concluded. "It is not surprising, therefore, that virtually every researcher or clinician who has worked with victims of perinatal loss has recommended that the parents be given an opportunity for contact with the dead baby in order to facilitate the grieving process."

In promoting the idea that it is bad for women to see and hold their stillborn babies, the Lancet study provides a credible excuse to medical personnel and clergy who would prefer to not face this difficult situation. As a result, it could have grave consequences for future bereaved mothers who give birth in hospitals that have eliminated the option.

Like it or not, the anxiety and grief that result from losing a baby don't simply disappear because you try to suppress them. Nor should they. However painful it might be, the grief feels right because it is equal in magnitude to the loss of your baby. The only way to move forward and rebuild your life is to accept that your worst nightmare really did happen, and to find ways to honor your baby's memory.

Anna was a beautiful, perfectly formed baby. Looking at the photographs of her, which we keep around the house, you can't tell that anything was wrong. Neither her sweet smile nor her peaceful sleeping face betrays the gruesome fact that most of her brain was permanently destroyed. Just the other day, a new friend saw her photo and cheerfully said, "Whose baby is that?"

"Our baby," I said, proudly.

As I prepare for the birth of my second baby, a boy, I am no longer gripped with the searing pain of her loss -- I have accepted it. I find myself smiling at her photograph as I imagine telling my son about his older sister, a remarkable little baby who changed my life.

One of the most unbearable aspects of losing a baby is the fear that she will be forgotten -- but forgetting is impossible. When the growing baby inside you is unexpectedly stillborn you don't simply forget and move on. The memory of your baby takes shape inside you, filling the void of the physical baby who once inhabited your womb.

Being able to ground these memories in the acts of seeing and holding our babies, being able to talk about them, enables us to come to terms with the loss, work through our grief, move forward with our lives, and continue to honor our babies in a culture that prefers to defer pain and is ill-prepared to deal with death.

To not have this, to not have had the opportunity to touch or smell or hold that baby -- even when it is born dead -- would be yet another terrible loss.

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