A Professional Response

Involvement in a sudden and unexpected infant death can be stressful for professionals. FSID’s Support and Education Manager, Jean Simons gives some practical advice.

Whether you’re an ambulance driver, police officer, GP, Health Visitor or Midwife, involvement with a sudden infant death can be difficult, and can cause you to question your professional capacity and extent to which you should get involved with the bereaved family. Many professionals experience the same anxieties. As cot death figures have declined professional involvement in these cases is infrequent. Common concerns include “I’m not a counsellor”; “there’s a supportive family”; “I don’t know anything about cot death”; “I’m not trained to deal with bereavement.”

There are no set guidelines as to how much you should be involved or what you should say, but there are a few things that you can do that will make a world of difference to a parent coping with the loss of a child. Most importantly, make contact, don’t avoid it. When hearing of a bereavement many people including friends and relatives stay away, so even a two minute call will be appreciated. You don’t need a counselling qualification or special training, just a good ear. Here are a few tips.

Do

• Keep it brief.
• Say how sorry you are.
• Use the baby’s name.
• Ask if there is anything you can help with immediately according to your professional capacity.
• Offer future availability.
• Check they have information about FSID, especially the helpline number
• Leave your own contact number
  

Don’t

• Use any clichéd expressions of condolences such as ‘time’s a great healer’ etc.
• Ask them to repeat the story unless they are eager to do so.
• Become defensive of your own or any colleague’s practice.
• Speculate about anything you’re not completely sure about.
• Compare it to another case.

If you would like further help and advice, call the FSID Helpline on 020 7233 2090. FSID has guidelines for professionals on responding to sudden infant deaths.