Navigating Baby Loss

114: Supporting a Mom After Stillbirth: Do's and Don'ts

• Jennifer Senn • Episode 114

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When someone you love loses a baby, your instinct is to help—but what if the things you're doing to comfort them are actually making things harder?

In this episode, I walk you through the 3 most common mistakes people make when trying to support a grieving mom after stillbirth or pregnancy loss—and what to do instead.

I share real stories from my own loss and from moms I’ve supported, including what it really feels like when someone says "Let me know if you need anything," or calls you "so strong" when you’re barely holding it together.

Whether you're the grieving mom who wants others to understand, or you're someone who wants to support her but feels totally unsure how—this episode is your guide.

You’ll learn:

  • The 3 phrases that do more harm than good (and what to say instead)
  • Why "just showing up" means more than saying the perfect thing
  • How to take helpful action without overwhelming her
  • What she hears when you say "You're so strong"
  • How to support her partner (they're grieving too!)
  • The single most powerful way to show you care

Resources Mentioned:

Share this episode with anyone who wants to better support a grieving parent.

https://navigatingbabyloss.com/workshop

Free workshop for moms grieving stillbirth or pregnancy loss. Learn simple, trauma-informed practices to release guilt, calm the what-ifs, and honor your baby's memory with love instead of pain. Includes bonus Grief & Guilt Release Journal.


Did you know you can text me right from your podcast app? My podcast host has a new feature that allows you to send a message or ask a question and I will answer them in future episodes! (just an FYI- it's a one-way message so I won't be able to respond unless you leave your name and contact info in the message!) Look under the title where it says Send Jen a message and let me know what’s on your mind.

Download my FREE "Guilt and Grief Release Journal" at navigatingbabyloss.com/journal

WHERE TO FIND AND FOLLOW ME!



 Hi, it's Jen from Navigating Baby Loss, and before I get right into today's topic, I want you to know that if you are listening to this. Because you are in the middle of grief or while you're trying to support someone who is that what you're doing right now is so important, just being here, trying to understand, trying to learn more and do the right thing to help someone in your life who is grieving the loss of their baby.

It just matters more than you know. So I want you to know that before we even get started today, because I often get calls from a mother wondering how to support her daughter or a husband who wants to know how he can help his wife get her life back. So I thought talking about this topic today about how to help others and be the support that others need as they are.

S trying to survive their baby loss would be really, really helpful. So last, last Tuesday, I got a text at 2:47 AM from, uh, I'll call her Sarah and her sister, I'll call her. Emma had just lost her baby at 32 weeks and Sarah was sitting outside in her car at her sister's house. She was afraid to go in. She said, Jen, I have no idea what to say.

I'm terrified. I'm gonna make it worse, but I just can't. I can't not go. I can't leave her alone. But I don't know what to do or say. So that that text is why I am here with you today. Because there's a good chance that you're Sarah, that you are the sister, the mom, the best friend, the coworker, or someone who wants to help, but you don't know how you feel lost.

Or maybe you are Emma. Maybe you are the one that's experienced the loss. You're trying to help the people who love you, understand what you actually need from them, because truly you don't even know yourself. But here's what I've learned after supporting hundreds of families through baby loss, is people desperately wanna help, but most of the time they just don't know how.

And sometimes the things they say or do, they're completely well-meaning. But they can actually hurt more than they help. So let me tell you about one of the moms I work with. When she lost her daughter at 24 weeks, she had visitors every single day.

Her house was filled with flowers and food and people who loved her. But you know what she told me a couple months later, she said, Jen, I felt at that time more alone than I'd ever felt in my whole life. How is that possible? How can you be surrounded by love and people and all the support that you need, but still feel so completely isolated?

So that's what we're gonna unpack a little more today, because there is a difference between support that that is helpful and support that is hurtful. And it's, it's not, it's just. It's not even understanding the grief, it's just really understanding more about how to read what a grieving mom actually needs.

So whether you are the one being the support or you're the one needing support, I am gonna give you some specific, practical and powerful ways to help that actually make a difference. So let me start with the biggest mistake that I see over and over again, and the first thing is stop asking her what she needs.

She doesn't know. Just do something. I know you mean well when you say, let me know if you need anything or is there anything I can do? And it feels helpful because you're trying to give her space to let you know and, and I know you'll do anything,



that's what we're gonna unpack today because the difference between support that is helpful and support that is unhelpful or even hurtful isn't about how much you love that person and how much you want to help them. It's really just about understanding what their grief looks like and. What a grieving mom might actually need.

So this is a great episode to share with people who are in your life, who are trying to help you. I'm gonna tell them all the things that you have been wanting to say, but just didn't know what to, what the words were. So whether you are trying to support the mom who's grieving, or whether you are the mom who's grieving.

I'm gonna give you some specific, practical and powerful ways to show up for that mom that actually make a difference. So let's start with the biggest mistake I see over and over again. Stop asking her what she needs. Just do something I know you mean well, when you say, let me know if you need anything or is there anything I can do?

And it feels really helpful because you are. You're willing to give her anything she wants. You're willing to do anything and you're trying to give her lots of space and you're trying to not as make assumptions and you're trying to be respectful, but what's, here's what actually is happening in her head.

When you say those words, she's thinking, I need my baby back. I need to wake up from this nightmare. I need my body to stop reminding me every second that I was pregnant and now I'm not. I need the nursery door to stop feeling like it's going to swallow me whole every time I walk past it. She doesn't know what she needs because what she needs is impossible.

So let me paint you a picture of what grief actually looks like in the first weeks after loss. She's sitting in her couch at 3:00 PM still in the same clothes she put on yesterday. She hasn't eaten since. Who knows when she, she doesn't even know her phone has been buzzing with texts, asking if she needs anything.

And each time that phone rings it, it feels like a small demand that she doesn't have the energy to meet. So when you ask what she needs, you're essentially handing her homework, figure out what you want, and then ask me for it. She's barely surviving each breath. She doesn't have the emotional bandwidth to manage other people's desires to help.

So here's what to do instead. Take the guesswork out of it instead of, let me know if you need anything. Try this. I'm going to target this afternoon. Can I pick up those crackers that you love? I made too much soup. I'm dropping some off around 6:00 PM You don't have to answer the door. I'll just leave it on the porch.

I'm coming by on Tuesday to do your dishes. You can hide upstairs if you want, but I'm doing them anyways. And here's why this works, because you're removing the burden of the decision making while giving her the option to say no if she needs to. You're being specific about time and action, and you're making it clear that helping her isn't conditional or being able to articulate what help looks like.

Another client, I'll call her, Rachel, told me that after she lost her son, her neighbor started showing up every Thursday morning with coffee and would just sit on her front porch and she'd text. I'm here if you want company, or I'm happy just to sit here by myself for a bit. Some days Rachel joined her.

Some days she didn't. But knowing that Thursday coffee was just there, it became something she could count on in a world that felt completely unpredictable. So here's a list of some specific things you can offer or just do for someone. You could drop off her favorite coffee or tea. You could bring a meal in disposable containers so she doesn't have to worry about returning dishes or even washing them.

Offer to grocery shop and ask her for her usual list. Text her some funny memes or pictures from your day. Don't expect any response. Send a card or flowers to her partner too, 'cause they're grieving and often overlooked. Offer to walk her dog or water her plants. Ask her if she wants to go for a short car ride with no destination.

Bring cozy things, soft blankets, fuzzy sack, some special fancy tea or coffee.

The bottom line is, is helpers don't need to wait to be told what to do. They can just start doing it. Okay? Here's the second thing. Here's the second tip. Please, please don't help her try to find the silver lining. This is the one that I could talk about all day long. The well-meaning comments that are supposed to bring comfort, but instead are just rubbing salt into that open wound. At least you can try again, everything happens for a reason. God needed your baby more than you did.

At least you have other children. At least it happened early as if there's a good time to lose a baby. You are young, you'll have more. Or even the one I heard the other day was, oh, that happened to someone I know and now she has two children, as if that matters. She still doesn't have the one she lost. So let me tell you what she hears when she, when you say these things.

So let me tell you what she hears. When you say these things, at least you can try again, becomes the baby you lost is replaceable. Everything happens for a reason becomes there's a good reason your baby died and you should be okay with it. God needed your baby more becomes God cares more about what he wants than what you need, and at least you have other children becomes.

You should be grateful enough that this loss doesn't devastate you. When I lost my twins, someone very close to me said, you can always try again. And I remember thinking, this isn't like shooting a dart at the balloon game at the fair. I was six weeks away from adding two new members to my family. I promise you, the mom in your life can't see any trace of a silver lining right now, and she shouldn't have to.

Right now, her baby died. Right now she's grieving not just the baby that she lost, but the entire future. She had imagined she's mourning the name, she picked out. The way her partner's face lit up when they saw the ultrasound, the nursery, they started planning the first Christmas morning. She'll never have with this child.

She's grieving a lifetime of memories that will never exist. Birthday parties, that won't happen, first days of school that won't come. Wedding dances, she'll never have. When you try to rush her into gratitude or faith or hope, you're essentially saying, your grief is too uncomfortable for me, so please, let's look at something else and let's try to make you feel something else instead.

But what if instead of trying to fix it, you just didn't? What if you just sat with her in this mess? Yes, it's uncomfortable. It's going to be, we are not conditioned to sit in anything uncomfortable, but here's what it might be like instead of everything happens for a reason, try, this is so heartbreaking and I don't understand why this happened to you.

It's okay to say that instead of at least you can try again. Say, I know how much you loved this baby. You would've been the most amazing mom to this baby instead of you're so strong. Try. You don't have to be strong right now. It's okay. It's okay to crumble for a bit. You, you're going through the unimaginable instead of God needed your baby.

Try. I wish your baby was here with you. I would do anything to be able to have your baby be here with you, but since you're not, I'm gonna sit here with you as long as you need me. I remember talking to my client, Jessica, about a month after she lost her daughter. And she said, Jen, I just want one person to say that this is terrible and unfair and that my baby should be here.

I don't want anyone to tell me why it's okay that she's not. We just need someone to agree. That our grief is terrible, that this is a terrible situation, that this is a living nightmare. It's okay to agree with someone that this is what their reality is right now, not to be pulling them towards some.

They don't want someone to be pulling them towards some bright light of hope. They just want someone to sit with them in this darkness and acknowledge that they're sitting in the darkness and that it's rotten and awful and completely under, and it's completely.

And to sit with them in the darkness and just agree that it is, that it's terrible, that it's terrible, it doesn't make sense, and it, and it's not okay. You don't need to make it better. You're not going to make it better. You just need to not make it worse. And sometimes the most loving thing you can do is simply witness someone's pain.

Without trying to fix it, be there, watch it be okay with it. It, it's completely understandable that they are in the depths of hell and you don't have to fish them out of it.

Okay, number three, stop telling her how strong she is. This one surprises people because you are so strong. Sounds like the ultimate compliment, right? We live in a culture that worships strength, especially in women. We love the narrative of a resilient warrior who pushes through anything, and we use the term badass as an ultimate compliment.

But when a grieving mom hears, you're so strong, here's what might be going through her head. I don't feel strong. I, this is the weakest I've ever felt in my life. If I look strong, does that mean that they think I've forgotten about this or that I'm doing fine or forgotten my baby? If I cry in front of them, will they be disappointed in me because they think I'm weak?

Am I supposed to be handling this better than I am? There's so many, there's so many conflicting thoughts that come with that. Strong comment. I remember for myself it was very much, um, I don't wanna be strong. I never wanted to be strong. This is not something I wanna be strong about. I don't, I didn't ask for strength.

So a client of mine, Maria, after she lost her. Twin boys at 28 weeks. Everyone kept telling her how amazing she was handling it, how inspired they were by her strength, and how they could never be as strong as she was. But she wasn't strong. She was barely holding it together. She was getting up, getting dressed, going through the motions because that's what human beings do to survive.

But she was still operating on pure shock and in a little adrenaline, and every time someone praised her strength, she felt more pressure to keep doing it. She started to believe that this is what she needed to do to get better, just keeping strong. Everyone thought she was doing great, so she must be, but she started to believe that backing, breaking,

and she really believed that breaking down. Would let everyone down. She'd be disappointing everyone in her life if she broke down and cried. If she had a weak moment, if she had a a bad day. And that crying meant she was failing. So here's the thing about the strength comments is they often come with a side of.

I could never handle what you're going through. Thank God it didn't happen to me. While that might feel like a compliment to you, to her, it can feel incredibly isolating. It's like you're putting our, I.

It's like you're putting her on an invisible island called people who can handle the unthinkable, and you're on the mainland called thank God I'm normal people. It makes her feel like she's somehow fundamentally different from everyone else. Like she's been moved to a category of human that others can't relate to, but she doesn't wanna be strong.

She doesn't wanna be in that category. She just wants her baby back. And she wants to feel like people who love her can understand her pain, not be amazed by her ability to live through it. So instead of commenting on her strength, try Refre re. So instead of commenting on her strength, try reflecting her reality.

This is so incredibly hard. I can see how much you're hurting. I don't have any words, but I'm, I'm thinking of you. I'm right here with you. You don't have to be okay, and instead of, I could never handle what you're going through, try, I can just imagine how hard this is for you. I don't know what to say, but I really care about you.

This should not have happened to you. The difference is subtle but important. You're not putting her in a separate category. You're acknowledging her pain as something that would be devastating to anyone while still holding space for the fact that she's the one living it and that you're right there with her.

Now let's talk about what actually helps, and I promise you it's so much easier than you think. It's just something that our culture is not conditioned to understand.

The first thing is to mark the date on your calendar. Remember the anniversary of her loss, maybe the due date, even if, if it's a close person to you and you knew the due date, mark it down. Send a simple text thinking of you and the baby's name today. This is huge because everyone else will forget, but those dates are seared into her mind forever.

She has, I can promise you, she has anxiety coming up to those dates the week before the month, the, the days before, the month before coming up to those dates are really hard for her. She probably isn't gonna say much, but just the fact that you remembered and sent a simple text will mean the world to her.

Say her baby's name. If she named her baby. Use the name. I've been thinking about Sophie today. If she didn't

say her baby's name, if she named her baby, use that name. I've been thinking about Sophie today. If she didn't name the baby, you could say your baby or your little one. The point is just acknowledge that this was a real person that she loved, not just a pregnancy that ended support her partner too. Everyone focuses on the mom. But her partner is also grieving a huge loss and very often gets completely overlooked. Send them a separate text, ask how they're doing, drop off their favorite coffee too. Don't put a timeline on her grief. There is no expiration date on loss. Don't expect her to be better in six months or a year.

Don't stop checking just because you think she should be over it by now, and definitely if, if she gets pregnant again. It doesn't mean that everything's okay again, that she's going to completely magically heal from this horrible loss and never think about it again. That's far. That's the farthest thing from the truth,

here's what to do when you don't know what to do. It's okay. I want you to know it's okay to mess up. We all do. I have said things before, I've gone through this experience myself that I regret and probably even after we all mess up. I've, I've been supporting families through loss for years and I still say the wrong things sometimes, but here's what I've learned.

The fear of saying the wrong thing should not stop you from showing up, because the alternative isn't to say the perfect thing. The alternative is saying nothing and silence feels like abandonment, isolation, and it's just silence is more painful than saying the wrong thing. So if you're worried about what to say, here are some phrases that are almost always safe.

I love you. I'm thinking about you. This is terrible. I'm so sorry your baby was loved. You don't have to respond to this. I just wanted you to know I care, and if you do something that hurts, here's how to handle it. You acknowledge it and apologize. I realized that what I said earlier wasn't helpful. I'm sorry.

I'm still learning how to support you through this and I care about you. Most grieving moms will appreciate your honesty and your willingness to do better. If you are listening to this as someone who has experienced a baby loss, I wanna talk to you for a minute. First, I want you to know that it's okay to share this episode with people in your life. It's okay to say, here's something that explains what I need better than I can right now.

You don't have to educate everyone around you while you're in the middle of grief. You can let other resources do some of that heavy lifting for you. And second, I want you to know that you deserve to be supported by people who get it. You deserve friends who don't disappear. When your grief gets messy, you deserve family members who remember your baby's name.

You deserve to be surrounded by people who aren't afraid when you break down and cry. And if the people in your life aren't able to show up the way you need them to, that doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. Sometimes people love us so deeply, but they just can't stand to see us hurt in crisis.

It's, it's very painful to see those you love hurting. You don't have to do this alone. One of the most isolating parts of baby loss is feeling like the only person in your world who understands what this feels like. It is truly a unique experience that no one, I don't think anyone really understands unless they've been there.

So I created. The Always loved club. It's a membership community specifically for moms who've experienced baby loss, where you can connect with other moms who truly understand what you're going through inside of this club, you will find all the resources that you need for every stage as you are processing this new life that you have, that you're processing your grief and creating this new person that you are since your loss we talk about everything, relationships, parenting after loss, pregnancy after loss.

Um, how to, how to cope with just day-to-day things, triggers, anniversaries, remembering babies. All kinds of things are, there's no, there's no topic that's off the table and you're in a community with other moms who get it. There are moms who understand that grief isn't linear. You don't just do the five stages of grief and grow out of it, and then you're done and that triggers come out of nowhere and some days are just about surviving. We meet twice a month for live support sessions. You'll get a monthly workshop on the topic that is always relevant to what you need right now, and you'll have access to our private online community where you can stay off social media and talk about anything that you wanna talk about in a very private space, supportive private space without.

Having to explain or educate anyone. If you're interested in learning more, you can find more@programs.jennifersenn.com / club. And I would love to welcome you into our community. So the most important thing is I wanna leave you with the most important thing I want you to take from this episode. If you.

So here's the most important thing. Let me leave you with the most important thing I want you to take from this episode.

So here's the most important thing. Let me leave you with the most important thing I want you to take from today's, from this today. Let me leave you with the most important thing I want you to take from today. If you love someone who's lost a baby, your presence matters more than your words. Your willingness to stay close, even when things are messy and sad and uncomfortable is what is helping.

You don't have to have the right words. You don't have to fix anything. You don't have to make it better. You just have to not make it worse. . Believe that they can survive it.

'cause they can, even when they can't see how, and you don't have to be the one to show them how sit, just sit beside them while they figure it out. One breath at a time. To the support people listening, thank you for caring enough to be here. Thank you for wanting to do better. The mom in your life is so lucky to have someone who loves her enough to seek understanding and to the grieving moms.

Your baby was real. Your love is real. Your grief is. Valid. No matter what anyone says or, or doesn't say, and you are not alone. Thank you so much for being here with me today. If this was helpful, please share it with someone who needs to hear it. Sometimes the most loving, helpful thing we can do is to help PE other people understand how to love better, and even in really uncomfortable situations.

I will see you next time on.

I'll see you next week, and until then, I'm sending you so much love.


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