Healthcare

How professionals communicate with and support families at the time of bereavement can profoundly affect those families' experiences.

There is little anyone can say or do to help ease the pain of losing a child. And yet, experience has shown that what happens in the hospital and in the community when a child has died can have lifelong repercussions and can affect the severity and duration of parental grieving.

Children do not need protecting from their feelings, but support in bearing them. Professionals may guide parents in how to create an appropriate environment for children to express themselves, whether in hospital, where a suitable place needs to be available, or at home, by talking naturally about the person who has died and how the children are feeling.