This podcast with Alena Peremská begins by discussing what has changed over the past 10 years. And fortunately, everything has changed. It used to be normal not to talk about the death of infants—it was a taboo; the babies weren’t shown to their parents, weren’t given names, and weren’t buried. “It” was supposed to be forgotten quickly.
So what's the right way to do it? Let's take it step by step.
How should bad news be delivered in a hospital? Isn't it better to say nothing? After all, if I don't say anything, I won't make things worse.
It isn't. If you don't know how, just approach it personally, humanely, on your own behalf. There's nothing wrong with crying—on the contrary, if you cry, it might actually be the greatest gift you can give that family.
How can you preserve—or even create—a memory of a child?
Take a photo together (seriously, we’ve had the best experiences with this). Ask for a memory box. Make footprints in it, give the baby a stuffed animal… We know from experience that this doesn’t traumatize the family.
How do you say goodbye?
First, at the hospital: The hospital should allow you to say goodbye to your baby in private. You can dress the baby and prepare it for burial… but you can also do this later at the funeral home.
And then hold a funeral, a ceremony. Let the child go, say goodbye. It will be a great help to our mental well-being, but also to the child’s soul. And if it helps us, we can even have the child baptized—we don’t think it matters whether the baptism is valid, but if it helps us, the Lord understands.
What should you do with the child then? Where should you put the child?
Parents often choose cremation and then keep the urn at home so that their child is always with them. That’s fine (we just recommend not keeping it in the bedroom). After some time, however, it’s a good idea to move the urn to a more permanent location. You can hold a “secondary funeral”—bury your child’s ashes in a cemetery or in the garden, scatter them in a meadow, or release them into the sea.
The podcast ends on a very personal—even touching—note, so it's really worth listening to all the way through.