This is your place to network and share your care practices. Send in your thoughts, ideas, successes, problem-solving ideas, awesome bereavement teachers/speakers...and we'll collect them here for you.
You might wonder about such things as: How do you raise money for your program? What are favorite ways of getting 3 dimensional hand/foot prints? Have you heard how they celebrate the baby's milestones in a NICU in Arizona as they create mementos for families? What do you recommend families do about social media? Who is considering holding a conference and looking for good speakers? Do you know about organizations like PLIDA or RTS who support professionals and provide education? If someone has answers and resources, share them here.
Email us with your pdfs to reproduce or write a few paragraphs about a topic. We'll post it here and you can keep checking back for the latest and the greatest.
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Seeing and Holding the Baby
Read the Unified Position Statement on Contact with Stillborn Babies – This two year project was created by over 15 perinatal loss experts from all over the world. It is a thoughtful, well-researched statement to guide caregivers who help parents meet their new baby who has already died. Use it in your inservice training for new staff and to update colleagues. Explore it carefully; the main message is that the more naturally you present the baby, the more likely parents will see this little one as their ‘forever’ child and will in most cases want to spend precious time holding and exploring the baby they had waited to meet for months and for many – years! Extensive experience and research are quoted throughout. Share this with your hospital staff.
Hospital Guidelines
Do you know what the guidelines for medical professionals are when a baby dies?
The Maternal and Child Health Bureau's approved Hospital/Clinic Guidelines after Perinatal Death, written by nurses with support from bereaved parents who were on the SIDS-OID Program Support Center. Read it here wrote Guidelines for Medical Professionals...Perinatal Loss Project is a good basic standard for all hospitals to have as a minimum. Many hospitals go far beyond these guidelines. Please check out these written polices and guidelines, then compare them with your hospital/clinic policies and make sure that they are thorough and sensitive to the needs of bereaved families.
Babies Remembered has also written (with the support of our medical provider associates, The Perinatal Loss Gold Standard. A three ring binder full of policies, forms, and very specific suggestions and checklists to evaluate and enhance any program. More than just lists...this Gold standard gets to the heart of the 'why' before offering the 'how-to's'. Can be purchased in the eShop.
The Staff Confidence/ Competence Survey
This is a tool created by Suzanne Helzer, RNC and Perinatal Loss Coordinator and Sherokee Ilse. The Staff Confidence/Competency Survey is used to identify each team member’s strengths and areas for improvement. A great tool for staff assessment and improvement or to be used as a pre-test and post-test at an educational event. One is for hospitals and one for clinics. It is a free download. We would love to hear your feedback on how you used it and its success. Any suggestions are also welcome.
The Gold Standard Hospital Program
Babies Remembered Consulting has created a Gold Standard Program that can be used as a guide to create or improve hospital perinatal loss programs. You can also use it to compare to yours as you evaluate and attempt to grow your program. The 3 ring binder is used by our consultants who charge an hourly rate when working with hospitals. It can be purchased for $100 from the eShop. When you invite us in for a full day of consultation, or more, the manual is free and will be used in the evaluation and development phases of consults.