For Parents
Losing a child is a life-altering and heart-wrenching experience. As a parent, you will experience the full range of emotions: sorrow, anger, doubt, fear, guilt, and more. Please know that you are not alone, and that all these emotions are a normal part of the grieving process. In addition to the services we provide parents listed on the right, you may find some of these resources useful:
Online Resources
- Compassionate Friends
- Mothers in Support and Sympathy (MISS Foundation)
- Still Standing Magazine
- Bereaved Parents of the USA
- What’s Your Grief
- Open to Hope
- Still Mothers
- PALS: Pregnancy After Loss
- Grieving Dads Project
- Grief Share
- Care for the Family
- Lullaby Trust
Following a Death
- Planning a Service (PDF)
- Investigators, Coroners, and Autopsies (PDF)
- Have You Considered?…Planning Your Child’s Service (PDF)
The Grieving Process
- Getting Through Grief: From a Parent’s Point of View (PDF)
- Grieving Alone: A Single Parent’s Experience (PDF)
- Taking Care of Yourself (PDF)
- The Death of a Child, The Grief of the Parents: A Lifetime Journey (PDF)
- Surviving the Death of a Baby (PDF)
- Helping Children Cope with Grief When an Infant Dies (PDF)
- Grieving Children (PDF)
Down the Road
- Subsequent Children (PDF)
- Finding a Counselor (PDF)
More Resources
- MCH SUID/SIDS Gateway (MCH)
- Recommended Readings (PDF)
- Other Grief Resources (PDF)
For questions about any of these resources, please contact the main office at 206.548.9290 or support@nwsids.org
Grieving Families and Friends
For Grandparents
As a grandparent, you are coping with intense feelings of grief, not only for the grandchild you lost, but for the pain your own child is experiencing. We are here to help you as well. Family members are welcome to all of our support groups and special events. Attending these with your grieving child is a good way of building a network of family support. We can also send a grief packet to anyone who has lost a grandchild to SIDS and have a “peer companion” grandparent contact you to provide support in person, over the phone, or by email. Additional resources are listed below:
Articles
Online Support
For Other Family, Friends, & Coworkers
Uncertain how to help a grieving family member or friend? You may find reading through some of the resources on the “For Parents” page helps you gain an elementary understanding of what a parent experiences upon the sudden death of a previously healthy infant. If you would like more information, please give us a call. We can also present a “how to help” training for family, friends, or coworkers of a SIDS parent who are interested.
What Not to Say to Someone Suffering…
- “I know how you feel.” (100% of respondents disliked this or any variation)
- “It’s for the best.” (100%)
- “Keep a stiff upper lip.” (98%)
- “At least…”
- “You should or shouldn’t”
- “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle” (88%)
- “It’s God’s will.” (93%)
Articles
- Dos and Don’ts (PDF)
Support Referal
Do you know someone who needs our help?
If you know somebody, spouse, family member, friend, a co-worker who you think could benefit from our support programs please take a second to fill out the form below and let us know. All referrals are confidential and there are no geographic limits.
There are millions of us out there walking the long, never-ending road called child loss, let’s find each other and walk together.