Many parents feel guilt when they lose their baby. Some moms think, “What did I do wrong?” I remember thinking, “If only I had taken my vitamins every day, than this would have never happened.” I later spoke with a woman who reminded me that when a baby is healthy, there is very little an expecting mom can do to interfere with its growth. While I knew this was true, I couldn’t help feeling partly responsible for my unborn baby’s death. Other women think, “I wasn’t excited for this baby. I hoped for a miscarriage and got what I wished for. It’s all my fault!”
Other women feel guilty because of mistakes they or other people made—drug use, diet, physical abuse, etc. This kind of guilt can be the hardest to deal with. Should Have’s and What If’s can crowd your mind and cause depression. There were things I could have done differently in my pregnancy; I don’t know any woman who has no regrets over decisions she made while carrying her child. It’s important to deal with these feelings in a constructive way. There isn’t any way to travel back in time to change the past. But we do have an active role to play in what the future will hold. What do you want to do differently next time? Make a list and stow it away for your next pregnancy. It might also be helpful to speak with your doctor. She can quiet some of your fears with facts about your baby’s untimely death. Most of the time, there isn’t anything you could have done to prevent it (especially if the miscarriage was due to chromosomal abnormalities, which it often is). She’ll remind you of what’s fact—and what is grief manifested as guilt.
I have spoken with other women who feel guilty for not being grieved enough over the loss of their unborn baby. This is most often the case when the pregnancy was new, the baby was not planned for, or the demands of life didn't allow for the grieving process to be completed. I know one woman who basically crawled inside of herself and was “dead to the world” for many, many months after a first trimester miscarriage. Another woman I know notified her family, cried, and told herself to get over it after discovering that she was no longer pregnant. Don’t feel bad for not feeling “correctly”! There is not just one way to deal with a miscarriage or stillbirth.
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The important thing is to give yourself permission to feel what you feel. Don’t make things worse by giving yourself a hard time. Guilt generally does not generate healthy, productive results. Consciously try to replace the guilt with facts: that your choices had little to no effect on your baby’s short life, that it’s ok to feel however you are feeling, and that there is no one right way to grieve.
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