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Helen Dandurand (Host): Welcome back to The Well Within Reach podcast. I'm your host, Helen Dandurand, and today I'm going to be joined by Reverend Marsha Collins, Director of Pastoral care at Riverside. And Tammy Mylcrane, Labor and Delivery nurse at the Riverside Family Birthing Center to talk about the support Riverside can offer around infant loss.

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Host: And we are back with Marsha and Tammy. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Marsha Collins: Our pleasure. Yeah. Thank you.

Host: Yeah, of course. So to start, could each of you share a little bit about your role at Riverside, as well as your role in supporting families who experience loss, the loss of an infant here at Riverside?

Tammy Mylcraine: This is Tammy. I am, a staff nurse in the labor and delivery department. I've been with Riverside for 33 years and have always had an interest for patients, parents that have gone through loss. So in addition to normal labor and delivery roles, I like to focus also on those with losses.

Host: Okay, and Marsha?

Marsha Collins: Well, for me, I've been at Riverside for 30 years. In addition to being the director of pastoral care, I also am a certified educator to train chaplains. And so we have chaplains I'm training in helping with how to be present with mothers and fathers and grandparents and families who experience all types of loss, including babies. And I personally also attend to, being with families. And it's been part of my journey for many years.

Host: Okay. Yeah. And you both said before we were rolling that you've done many talks together and have gotten to work together a lot. So they have a lot of experience here.

So we'll start with Tammy on the birthing center side, what resources and support are available for parents during those first moments after loss?

Tammy Mylcraine: First, I'd like to start with presence. We try to provide one-to-one nursing care so that we can spend as much time as we can with our patients and family as they go through this difficult time. We share the plan of care with them so that they have an idea of what to expect during their stay.

We also provide items such as a Cuddle Cot, which is a cooling cot available for parents to keep their baby with them as long as they would like to at the bedside. We also have memory boxes and small thinking of you types of gifts from some of our wonderful organizations that we are partnered with. When we have the opportunity and if it's okay with a parent, we can obtain tangible other things such as a lock of hair from the infant. We can do hand and foot molds. We can take pictures. We do what we can to actually give something to them to be able to take home. The organizations that we pair with are the result of someone within that organization that has gone through a loss.

And so for some people, giving back in this way, maybe it's writing a card, maybe it's something, crocheting something, maybe it's something else. But it is their way of healing.

Host: Okay. And you mentioned items, some tangible keepsake, small gifts, memory items. Why are these tangible things so meaningful for families during this time?

Tammy Mylcraine: Leaving the hospital without a live infant is something no parent wants to experience. These small, tangible gifts provide both validity and something tangible to actually be able to take home rather than their empty arms. They oftentimes are going back to an empty room. An empty house something, and so these small ways that we can try to help them, I believe, can be very meaningful.

Host: How does your team tailor grief support materials and connect families with the right resources that they may need moving forward?

Tammy Mylcraine: Every loss situation and patient is different. We identify what we can to help the parent, provide services, materials, written literature, social service involvement, who also has resources, chaplain services, and of course our community services.

We also support parents who would like to receive a birth certificate after stillbirth, which is the effect of Liam's law. So a birth certificate after stillbirth is also a tangible item that they are able to obtain.

Host: Thank you so much for going into detail on that. We are going to take a quick break to talk about primary care at Riverside. Consistency is being able to count on someone to be there when you need them. At Riverside Healthcare, your primary care provider is dedicated to being in your corner, helping you and your family stay healthy and thrive.

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And we are back. So Tammy just kind of finished telling us about some materials and services that they help individuals get in contact with, to help them on their journey after infant loss.

And one of those things was maybe getting them in touch with pastoral care. And so now we're going to kind of shift things over to Marsha. Marsha, could you tell us a little bit about what spiritual care looks like for families in these moments of loss?

Marsha Collins: When we're invited to come into the room to see a mom, any family members that are there, it's by their specific request. When I enter into the room, I don't come with an agenda. Every person is unique. Every loss situation is unique, for how we experience loss, and particularly such an unanticipated tragedy in one's family, and so I enter in more with how can I be present? I don't have a list of what do I do, but how can I be present?

Because I know for me personally, when I've experienced shock, for me it was like swimming in fog and I didn't have everything figured out. So it's taking my time. When I enter in a room, I'm there to take my time. Not to be in any kind of hurry, to be fully present with the family. If the baby is in the room, which often he or she is, then my focus too is really in looking into the face of the infant.

Because I want to communicate to the parents that I see their baby and I see how precious their baby is. Just exactly how he or she is. And so for me it's wanting to communicate heart and being there for whatever I can provide that they desire, to give them any sense of of assurance, of divine presence or the hope of heaven or to see their loved one, to see their baby again and be with their child, to see them grow, but I'm there to find out in a unhurried way what they desire.

Host: Yeah. In these situations, is it always you that responds to them or, do you have a team that also will go out?

Marsha Collins: We do have a team because this is 24/7. So it can't be the same person. Yeah. So it could be the chaplain who's covering the clinic, you know, at that time. There's times when they do call me and they say, Marsha, we want you to be the one to come. And then definitely I would. Because this is highest priority to me to make sure we deliver quality care.

I mean, there's times when they want a little memorial service. And I work with the parents and we have a little service in the chapel for them, but it's all very individually formed for what? And if there's generations in there. Often the grandparents will contribute to, well, could we have this, you know, type of thing or certain prayer, or certain scripture.

But I always run it by the mother, and the father to make sure that they're comfortable. Sometimes a family member may want a song and the mom says, I can't handle having music when which I totally understand because emotionally it's really hard. And so then we don't.

Host: Got it. So it sounds like you start with coming in with, you know, your quiet presence and, providing that space for families. But in addition to that, like you said, there are some other things that you can offer. I know that your team offers some services like blessings, naming ceremonies and memorials. Could you share a little more about what those mean for families and why rituals like these can be so powerful?

Marsha Collins: I think it is connected to when Tammy was talking about having the memory box to have a piece of paper, that reassurance that from the spiritual viewpoint, and I know in a way, depending on the history of the family and their spirituality, they are of a particular denomination or spiritual sense, that they're wanting this reassurance that God is present with their child. And so having the certificate, whichever certificate it is, that's in writing, that they can also have in their memory box, that reassurance that God is with their child and the time as the hymn says in the sweet, by and by, where they can receive their child back again. That it's the pause in the music, but the music will begin again. So, I believe having that tangible piece of paper and, if we do anything with oral or water, we can always use a little shell if they request anything in that respect and they can have the little shell to keep too, to have another piece of memory.

Host: That all sounds like really nice. I know in addition to the individual care that you give to families, you have twice a year, Riverside holds memorial services to honor those who have passed. What is that service like and how does it help families to continue on with their healing process?

Marsha Collins: The most important thing I think about the memorial service is community, that everyone who's there is there because there's a loved one from infant to grandparents that is being remembered. So we would begin with a welcome and we have a very known like poem from Ecclesiastes, a Time to Be Born, a Time to Die.

We have that poem, which everyone reads in responsive reading. And there's various poems that are read, music, people who speak in the service and every single name is read of individuals being remembered and family members are invited if they would like to, they can bring in a photograph or a little teddy bear or some kind of a memorial of their loved one, and we have them on the table in front so everyone can see the different items that are brought in.

And that gives that sense of community too. We also offer if the individual family members want to bring me a paragraph or two of something they've written in reference to their loved one, whether it's a baby or any age of an individual. And then I read those, and usually the service is 45 minutes to an hour at the most, and it's very meaningful to hear about the different people being remembered. Not, everyone brings in. We wouldn't have time if they did, and not all family members can come due to family schedules, et cetera.

We can always send them the booklet afterwards so they see the name of their loved one in the program and they see what all is involved in the program, they're welcome to do that and it's very meaningful.

People afterwards give a lot of hugs. There's some tears, there's some laughter. We want to honor the people who have died, and so our focus is on cherishing and honoring, when we have our services.

Host: That sounds like a great way to honor folks. How are families notified about being able to come to that?

Marsha Collins: It's in a couple ways. For the mothers who have a baby who dies, they are given a sheet of paper or a card, you know, in the OB labor delivery and letting them know that a memorial service will be held and if they would like their infant remembered to contact us. That doesn't happen as much as if we were to ask them ourselves, but we have that.

Because not all parents want to see a chaplain, and I totally respect that because if I'm in heavy grief, personally, honestly, I don't want anybody around me. I mean, that's my style of grieving, so I respect that. But for any parent and what I really want to stress too, there's not a time limit on grief.

I have had an experience with a mother whose baby died, who's two of the two grandmothers in the room talked about babies that they died, they never even got to see, and they were never remembered and honored in any way. And so in that program, we had the current child, the current baby who died, and the relatives past the ages, all in the same program because they wanted to have their names in there and they'd be acknowledged by community.

And I thought that was wonderful. For adults or other people who die in the medical center, we have next of kin and we send a letter to the next of kin. Okay, so that's how we reach out to everyone. But for the mothers, if a chaplain's involved, they will get an indication if they think of it, from the family.

But, you know, so they may not want in memorial service this year, but they might want it another year, and that's fine. There's no age limit. Some losses can be extremely early when you don't even know. You don't know the gender of the child. And so there's many mothers who create names and I tell them, there are no rules here.

We can do whatever is of comfort to you. We will do so we want to be very respectful and the really what's of comfort and only they know. And so we don't want to impose anything on anyone.

Host: Wow. Well, it's wonderful how accommodating that you are and how open you are. And both of your teams are to try and make folks feel comfortable during this time.

And kind of to finish off today, I just want to ask you both, we can start with Tammy, as that's kind of been the order of this podcast. What would you want parents listening who may have walked this journey to know about the kind of care and compassion that Riverside provides?

Tammy Mylcraine: I would want them to, I hope, realize that there is help and support. There is community, there are services available for anybody that is walking the journey. They may have experienced themselves, they may have had a loved one who is going through the process, but to know that we are there to provide the best possible care in order to have them be able to proceed with their next stages.

Host: Okay. And Marsha, what would you say?

Marsha Collins: From chaplaincy point of view is we're here with a heart. So many of us, and even, you know, on my team too, having the loss of a baby is sadly very universal. So within our own families, my sister's child, it's just we have a heart and we really, really want to be there for you in whatever way you determine is best for you.

Host: Well, the work that both of you do is so important and it's great to have such caring people. So I'm glad to have you on the podcast today. Thanks for joining me. Thank you. Yeah. And thank you listeners for tuning into the Well Within Reach podcast brought to you by Riverside Healthcare. For more information, visit riversidehealthcare.org.