SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — What do you say to a mother who just delivered a stillborn baby? This is the focus of a program at Jefferson Health.
It's offered by a group called Three Little Birds, founded by Kristen Samuelson, who lost a baby of her own. She was upset that none of the doctors or nurses who treated her knew how to handle these difficult conversations.
"I had nurses that were wonderful and other nurses that — maybe not so much. And even the nurses that were wonderful looked at us like a deer in headlights," she said.
Samuelson created Three Little Birds to help solve this communication problem. "We encourage the medical providers to hold space. They can show emotion. We are human too," she said.
Marilyn Mapp is a nursing director at Jefferson Washington Township, and is also a mother who lost a baby. She said this training will help her staff better connect with patients.
"This is something that's not a one and done. It's something that we will need refreshers. We will need to practice. We will need to use the scrips," said Mapp.
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The program provides scripts to follow for different circumstances so hospital staff know exactly what to say in a situation. Mapp said she wishes this program had been around for her.
"They genuinely didn't know what to say, so they are just 'OK, now it's time for your medication' or 'Let's do your discharge,'" she recalled.
Sometimes, Samuelson said, admitting you don’t know what to say but that you’re there to help and support is just what grieving a mother needs to hear.
"No matter who you lose, it's complicated. But when it's a pregnancy or a baby, it's just so intimate," she said. "So our training program focuses on honoring the grief and the fog of grief that families walk through."
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