Support essential to cope with stillbirth

Hospital chaplains struggle with their personal faith when trying to help parents come to terms with stillbirth, research has found.

Moreover, without proper training and support, the experience could have “serious consequences for their wellbeing,” according to the study, published in BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care.

The study’s main author, research student Daniel Nuzum, hospital chaplain at Cork University Hospital, said a diagnosis that a baby will not survive or has already died in utero “brings with it a bewildering array of emotional distress where birth and death collide with life-long impact for the parents.”