Coping with Cot Death

A mother talks about the grief she felt after baby died from cot death. Bearevement counselling enabled her to cope; and also keeping alive the memory of her daughter.

Emma Smith: It's not something you ever get over. You don't really want to get over it because you want Mazie to carry on as part of your life really, but you get -- the grief kind of becomes, you become familiar with it and it becomes part of you. Dr. Richard Wilson: Sometimes one uses the analogy of a river, people have been going along the river of life, and suddenly, quite unexpectedly, they are over a waterfall. It's an absolute suspension of belief, it seems totally impossible and then they crash into rocks and a well-pool, and are going around in the series of emotions, sometimes a bit of calm, sometimes a bit of anger, but a whole series of quite different emotions. Ann Deri-Bowen: Something we can offer is to listen so that parents can talk, they could be angry, they could be really classified what's happened, they can feel guilt, they can feel emotions and maybe they don't want to share even with their partners. They might want to just talk about that baby before the baby died. Emma Smith: Within six months of her death, quite hard to understand be it your friends and your family, have to get on with their life and I began to feel resentful of the fact that they could get on with their life and I was still in this sort of deep hole of despair without Mazie, without -- we're carrying around this horrendous grief and the horror of that evening. And I just wanted to talk about it to the people who have moved on and I found the bereavement counseling gave me a channel every week to talk about it. Dr. Richard Wilson: One of the things about a baby dying is not only that it's inappropriate, wrong, the babies should die. But you are losing a whole future which parents have all have dreams about, so you've lost your dreams as well as your baby. Ann Deri-Bowen: It's always good for anybody who is alongside somebody who has lost a baby to remember their name, and fulfill back, look at photographs and ways in which to keep those memories alive. Emma Smith: Betty and Peggy will grow up knowing Mazie as their elder sister. We talk about her every single day. If I say to Betty, I love you Betty and I love you Peggy and I love you Mazie. I say it that loud all the time.