We are Bereavement Midwives in the NMH & we care for families during the devastating loss of their baby.  We hope to raise as much funds as possible for the NMH foundation to continue to support bereaved parents. 

On Friday the 15th of October we will be 'walking to remember' all the babies we have cared for and their families. The 15th of October is the international wave of light and the NMH will join many buildings around the world in lighting up in pink/purple, we thought this was the perfect day to complete our walk.

The NMH foundation supports our role and has allowed us to greatly improve the services we can offer bereaved families in our care.

A vital part of our role is supporting parents to make precious memories with their baby. Through support from the foundation we expanded our memory making options and now provide the option of painting the babies feet/hands on canvas. We can also include older children in this and this allows the families to come together to create lasting memories. 

Covid-19 really affected our work and we relied greatly on the support from the NMH foundation to support parents throughout the pandemic. While the imposed restrictions affected many services, one that was of particular significance for our team was that professional photographers could no longer attend the hospital. We are profoundly aware of the importance of memory making after the death of a baby and high quality photographs are an important part of this. This led us to develop our photography skills and we quickly learnt basic skills to take, edit, and print photos. This was made possible by the support of the NMH foundation. The foundation provided us with photo albums and frames so that we could display these precious photos in a beautiful way.  

The foundation has also helped us to renovate a number of rooms throughout the hospital including the chapel of rest, an en-suite room in the antenatal ward and our counselling room. These rooms are now decorated to make them feel more homely and less clinical. This is vital for parents and provides them with privacy and comfort to spend time with their baby after birth. 

The foundation fund the printing of a number of information booklets, we need to provide a lot of information to parents but it is too much for them to take in when told verbally. These information booklets are vital for parents and can be taken home to read when they feel ready. 

They also provide us with baby clothes in a variety of sizes to fit babies from a small as 1pound up to full term babies. This means parents can be supported to dress their baby.

The foundation provides books for older brothers and sisters. Explaining to a child that their baby brother or sister has died is extremely difficult for parents. These books can make this a little easier for parents. 

They also have provided training sessions for staff & bespoke bags to places the baby's personal items. 

For further information please see http://www.nmh.ie/support-services/bereavement-chaplaincy.13636.html