When Loved Ones Experience Miscarriage, Offer Specific Help

By Nick Carrington EPLA Editor

When grief attacks, it comes for the whole person, plundering their physical, emotional, and spiritual reserves. In miscarriage, a mother’s body needs to heal without the joy of holding their little one. Both parents must fight through the reality that their home is missing someone, a person of infinite value.

This kind of attack makes daily life that much harder, but life rarely slows down. Parents are often required to go to work with limited or no time off. Bills need to be paid, and they must keep their house in order. If loss parents have other children, those little ones still need to get to school or daycare or be cared for at home.

Amid grief, these normal parts of life become overwhelming.

Healing often comes in community, and one reason why is that we can take the burdens of others upon ourselves. Picking up those little weights allows a grieving person to breathe, if only for a few moments, and reminds them that they are loved.

But even in the grief of miscarriage, hurting people don’t want to inconvenience others. They will likely not ask for help, soldiering on to avoid their pain or appear okay. Many well-meaning people have said “let me know how we can help.” Those words usually lead to nothing, the grieving unwilling to ask for something specific.

So as a loved one, don’t say that. Instead, offer to do something at a particular time. Tell them you want to cut their grass on a Saturday. Offer to set up a meal train and make one of your own to bring them. Watch their kids so loss parents can catch up on important tasks or simply be together as a grieving couple.

It will be much easier for loss parents to say yes to an offer of specific help, and it shows you’ve thought about their needs.
Take some of their responsibilities upon yourself, sacrificing your time to help them heal. They may not know they need it, but these little acts of kindness will ease the pressure in their minds and hearts and give them more space to grieve. 

Nick Carrington is an Editor for the EPLA and Associate Professor of Professional Writing at Cedarville University