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What Do You Put on a Headstone for a Stillborn Baby

Written By quinta-feira, 10 de março de 2022 Add Comment Edit

Introduction

The birth of a child, it is usually assumed, is one of the happiest moments in the life of a family. Nevertheless, occasionally infants die very soon after nascence, or are stillborn and the moment of welcoming new life to this world coincides with saying farewell and astute grieving. When this happens, the support and guidance of medical professionals is of the utmost importance to parents. In a Dutch documentary from 2008 on premature babies with astringent health problems, this is clearly shown. A doctor informs the father that they volition be unable to relieve his child, built-in moments before at 26 weeks of pregnancy. They expect the kid to die at any moment. The doctor says to the father: 'Touch your child, requite him a kiss with all you lot have in you lot, everything y'all have on your mind, give information technology to your kid'.1 The doc has to repeat her message considering the father hardly understands what she is saying. But then he follows her advice, starts to cry and kisses his child farewell. He and so leaves the room, probably to become and inform his wife who is been taken intendance of elsewhere in the infirmary.

This documentary offers an insight into the care of babies in danger of death around their nascency and bears witness to profound changes in that intendance over the last forty years. Until the 1980s, the death of children around their nativity was handled completely differently by medical professionals every bit is evident from the testimony of ane female parent. She was not immune to run across nor touch her child: 'They did not tell me why I was not allowed to run into her. It was my child, our child, there was no explanation nor any comfort' (Faro, 2015) Children who died shortly before, during or shortly after birth were not buried with the traditional funeral rituals and services. The hospital, or the begetter took care of an anonymous and sober burying and nobody ever spoke over again about what had happened. Until the yr 2000, children in the Netherlands who died around nascency, were simply commemorated within the privacy of their ain family unit, not publicly.

The dedication of a monument to stillborn children in 2000, in the Dutch village of Reutum, acquired an avalanche of attention in the public media. Since that time more than than 160 monuments have been established in the country.ii Most of them have been erected at the premises of graveyards or crematoria or next to (mainly Roman Catholic) churches (Faro , 2011; Peelen, 2011).

A well-known example is the monument at a cemetery in the urban center of Sittard, initiated past Ria Ruyters and her husband (Figure 1) in 2009. The monument is in the vicinity of the identify where their lilliputian daughter was buried and is a sign of recognition of the lost child and validation of long-fourth dimension hidden and ignored grief:

It is a place of remembrance, to stand still, lone or together, and respect all those children who did not go a proper noun but who became role of our life. The monument allows parents to settle downward and come up to terms with their silent loss and grief. (Author, 2015)

Figure one. The monument Een glimlach kwam voorbij ('A grin passed by')

The exact burial place of many stillborn children is not known. Many years after the death of their child, many parents nevertheless feel an enormous grief. They remain upset nearly the most the neglect of their loss and the lack of social support they were offered. Kenneth Doka's terms 'unrecognized loss' and 'disenfranchised grief' seem appropriate here (Doka, 1989, 2002). Seeking the place of burial and erection of monuments and the public attention information technology brings, fifty-fifty many years after the stillbirth, help parents with their experiences of disenfranchised grief.

In this paper I focus on the meaning these monuments take for parents of stillborn children. I ask: 'How do Dutch monuments for stillborn children help parents in coping with feelings of disenfranchised grief?' The objective of this exploration of the meaning of the monuments is to illustrate why a monument constitutes currently such an important chemical element in commemoration practices of parents of children stillborn many years agone. Why exercise people put so much endeavor into the erection of a monument, almost of the time long after they lost their child? Does a monument 'repair' the injustice done to them and to their kid?

This paper draws on an exploratory study involving qualitative methods of data collection and analysis. I conducted twenty-six interviews with parents, artists, medical professionals, undertakers and employees of graveyards, representatives of the Roman Catholic church and local municipality. The paper speaks of people directly involved with monuments to stillborn children, in particular the emotions and meaning they acquaintance with the monuments.3 I will first describe the management of stillbirth upwards to the mid–1980s and how this has resulted in feelings of disenfranchised grief for many parents. I will and then focus the factors that contributed to parents' feelings of disenfranchised grief, in particular the bereavement paradigm at the time of 'breaking bonds' with the deceased (Freud, 1917; Neimeyer et al., 2002). In this respect the change of paradigm into 'continuing bonds' with a deceased will be discussed (Klass & Steffen, 2018). Presently the gilt standard of care in kingdom of the netherlands is to provide parents with information on all relevant issues and allowing them to make informed decisions at the time of stillbirth.iv Nowadays parents' grief is acknowledged and respected. Parents accept options to pay respect and memorialise their stillborn kid in order to continue their bonds with the baby, and they may make their own choices in this respect. This is in sharp contrast with parents in my report. Many of them are even so trying to cope with feelings of sorrow, guilt and anger about the fail and disrespect of their loss. I will explore the strategies that parents take developed in order to cope with their feelings of disenfranchised grief. I focus on parents' search for the last resting place of their stillborn kid and their attempts to marking this identify with ritual acts and objects. Finally, I will consider and talk over the function and pregnant of monuments in the context of theoretical concepts on identify and infinite. In this respect I will explore the instance of the Sittard monument Een glimlach kwam voorbij ('A grin passed by'). This monument has been selected for discussion in this newspaper as it is representative of other Dutch monuments that have been studied in the course of the research past the author.

Stillbirth, disenfranchised grief and towards continuing bonds

In holland, up to the mid-1980'due south, doctors, midwives, and nurses, determined what happened at the time of birth. Co-ordinate to the protocols at the fourth dimension, stillborn children were well-nigh often taken abroad immediately after birth. Mothers were not allowed to come across their child, fathers were sometimes able to catch a glimpse. Gynaecologists were taught that emotions should not be raised past acquainting the parents with their stillborn child. Information technology would be more than hard for them to handle their loss once they had held their child. Full general practitioners attention deliveries at the residences of parents adopted these practices too. In other countries, these protocols prevailed too. In 1986 in the Us, John Defrain, Leona Martens, January Stork and Warren Stork carried out a survey among parents of stillborn children, 'forgotten parents' they called them (DeFrain et al., 1986, backcover). One of the bereaved parents said: 'The theory some medical people are operating on, of course, is that not looking makes it easier to "forget"' (DeFrain et al., 1986, p. 54). In her account of pregnancy loss in America, Linda Layne (Layne, 2003, p. 223) quotes Michael Berman on his obstetrical preparation in the 1970s:

That if a child was stillborn or born with a serious, "unsightly" nascence defect, the physician should endeavour to protect the parents from the "shock" of seeing their dead kid past covering information technology with a coating, quickly removing it from the commitment area, and sending the body to the morgue to exist cached in an unmarked grave. (Berman, 2001, p. xvii).

Miscarriages and stillborn children were non considered a loss that should exist mourned (Lovell, 1983). One of my interviewees, Ria Ruyters, described the stillbirth of her first kid thus:

Our first daughter was stillborn in 1969 in the infirmary in Sittard. She was full-term, unfortunately she had already died before nascence. The babe, a girl, was immediately taken away, I did not run into her. Nobody ever spoke about her and I did not ask. My husband saw her, lying in her little coffin, give thanks goodness nicely dressed by the hospital. He took her to the cemetery where he had to mitt her over. My hubby was not allowed to attend her burial. And that was is it! I was simply 22 years one-time at the time and let it all happen because I thought that was the style it ought to happen. You came home empty-handed, and the child's chamber had already been cleared and everything was soon business as usual. (Author, 2015).

Ruyters' account suggests that at the time, the social environs of parents did not acknowledge their loss of a stillborn kid nor were these parents allowed to grieve them in public. Dutch parents were almost 'forced' to 'deny' and 'ignore' their stillborn child as if it had not existed at all. Their grief was marginalised and there was no specific death- or funeral related ritual for their stillborn child.

Questions of how to 'handle' the loss of a loved one have long been a subject of inquiry in bereavement studies. Up till the 1990s, the 'breaking bonds' approach was dominant. This paradigm is based on the ideas of Freud and suggests that the bereaved should exist freed from all ties with the deceased in lodge to create free energy for new relationships (Freud, 1917). The management of stillbirth at the time described in a higher place, seem to be founded on the breaking bonds epitome. This has left the parents in my study with feelings of unrecognised loss and empathic failure (Neimeyer et al., 2002). Doka coined the term 'disenfranchised grief' (Doka, 1989, 2002), grief experienced when loss is not openly acknowledged. While a loss has been experienced, there does not seem to be a 'correct' to grieve that loss because the social context does not recognise that loss as a legitimate cause of grief. Doka mentions abortions and miscarriage specifically and says: 'For example, in earlier eras ballgame and miscarriage were rarely addressed, recognized, or mourned. Grief over these events may re-emerge in later life.' (Doka, 2002, p. 164).

In his landmark report on the bereavement of parents whose children had died at a young age, Dennis Klass reports on how parents found solace in retaining an elaborate bond between themselves and the inner representation of their deceased children (Klass, 1993, p. 360; Klass et al., 1996; Klass & Steffen, 2018). This can be seen as the showtime of a shift of paradigm in bereavement studies, from 'breaking bonds' to 'standing bonds' (Klass et al., 1996; Walter, 1996). Tony Walter argues that the bereaved may 'retain the deceased' (Walter, 1996, p. 23) and the human relationship does not take to be severed but may be transformed. In 2018, more than 20 years afterwards the term 'continuing bonds' was coined, Klass and Steffen conclude that retaining bonds with the deceased is an accepted choice in bereavement processes (Klass & Steffen, 2018).

At the end of the 1960s, attending started to be given to the procedure of grieving of stillborn children (Bourne, 1968). In kingdom of the netherlands, the first results of scientific enquiry on this mourning process were published in the 1980s (Hohenbruck et al., 1985; Keirse, 1989; Lambers, 1980). It was at that time that medical professionals start became aware of the fact that the bonding betwixt a parent and a kid had already started before nascency. With respect to this alter of prototype new protocols and guidelines were developed. The practice is now that immediately later a stillbirth parents should be encouraged to spend fourth dimension with their child instead of separating parents and kid. This has become an important element in the grieving processes of parents. Parents are encouraged to hold their child, to hug it, and to take intendance of it. Deborah Davis observes that present the 'gold standard of care is to approach parents with the cognition that this infant is theirs and to back up them in spending every bit many hours or days and nights as they want with their niggling one.' (Davis, 2016, p. 13). Lau et al conclude that standing bonds may help legitimise and concretise the loss (Lau et al., 2018, pp. 155–156). Organising a funeral for stillborn babies, with accompanying rituals, has become part of the bereavement procedure. Coping with the loss should be done by remembering the kid, the advice is at present. Information technology is considered of import to actually 'create' remembrances in the short time between the child'due south birth and its funeral. Present, pictures are fabricated, footprints or a slice of hair are kept, all matters to identify with the kid at a subsequently time (Cadge et al., 2016; Meredith, 2000; Riches & Dawson, 1998).

While guidelines and education have improved care and concern for bereaved parents, perinatal loss is still considered a type of 'ambiguous loss' (Lang et al., 2011, p. 183). Lang et al conclude that the juxtaposition of the parent'southward grief 'with society's minimisation oftentimes disenfranchises them from traditional grieving processes.' (Lang et al., 2011, p. 183). In fact, awareness of the new approach of standing bonds, increases already existing feelings of disenfranchisement that the bereaved parents in my written report expressed. Their loss happened at a fourth dimension when the loss of a kid at birth was considered to exist a medical setback instead of a human tragedy (Lovell, 1983). Parents who were at the time not able to meet nor bury their stillborn child have noticed that since that fourth dimension the opinion on how to act when a child is stillborn has changed. For many of them this had an result their ain experiences and they at present recognise their experiences as a form of disenfranchised grief that was 'non openly best-selling, publicly mourned or socially supported.' (Doka, 1989, p. iv). They now realise how 'limited social support there was for what may be considered by much of club as a non-outcome.' (Cacciatore, 2010, p. 135; DeFrain et al., 1986).

The Sittard monument, mentioned in a higher place, had a snowballing outcome as other parents broke the silence around their lost children. All over the country parents began developing strategies to cope with their feelings of unacknowledged loss and disenfranchised grief. I volition now discuss these strategies developed past parents of stillborn children to come up to terms with their disenfranchised grief and I will take the story of the Sittard monument as an example.

Strategies to cope with disenfranchised grief of stillborn children

The search for the last resting place of stillborn children

Ria Ruyters and her husband learned through the media about a monument for stillborn children in Roermond, a metropolis nearby Sittard. Upon visiting that monument, emotions long time hidden returned. It felt to them as if the silence about their daughter who died and so long ago was finally broken. They also became aware of the fact that they were not alone in their sorrow. They met many other parents with similar feelings. Now that the silence had been broken, the first affair they wanted to practice was to find out nearly the identify of burial of their own girl. This place could finally exist retraced with the aid of one of the employees of the cemetery. This employee has now assisted many other parents in locating the place where their stillborn child was buried. He explains that in the vicinity of the present monument, hundreds of children have been cached anonymously with simply a little sign with a number (Figure 2):

It happened virtually every other solar day that the undertaker passed by with a stillborn child in a little bury which we had to bury. The parents did not nourish, which I idea was strange, merely that was how things were done in those days. A couple of years ago, Mrs. Ruyters came to run into me. She asked me if I could assist her find the fiddling grave of her daughter, which I could considering nosotros have been registering everything, also the stillborn children. Ever since that time, I have been able to assist about 100 parents in finding the grave of their kid. (Author 2015, pp. 213–214).

Figure ii. Last resting places of stillborn children at the cemetery in Sittard

Ria Ruyters and her husband were lucky to be able to trace the place of burial of their daughter; many other Dutch parents of stillborn children were not. They remain unaware of what happened to their child after it was taken abroad at the time of stillbirth. If they were Roman Catholic, and the kid had non been baptised, the kid would have been buried in the unconsecrated grounds of a graveyard. In many cases in that location would be no registration (Gamble & Holz, 1995). With the media attention after the first monument in the village of Reutum had been dedicated in 2000, new facts emerged. Hospitals it turned out, had fabricated 'arrangements' with local cemeteries.5 Pieter Lammers, son of an undertaker in the city of Helmond, informed a local newspaper that in the 1960s, it had been his chore to bury stillborn children. He describes a remote corner of the graveyard: 'They are all over here, that's where we had to bury them.' He thinks it is important that parents are finally told where that place is.half-dozen In the same article Joke Dekkers explains how she has been searching for more than 37 years for the concluding resting place of her daughter, Lotte. Considering of the article in the newspaper many parents of stillborn children requested to be informed about the last resting identify of their stillborn child. In a television documentary husband and wife Jan and Clara de Vaan said that for 34 years they had been unaware of the last resting place of their kid who had been stillborn in 1967. By means of a well-thumbed notebook, owned by the warden of the local cemetery in the city of 'southward-Hertogenbosch, they were able to retrace the exact location.seven

In the city of Roermond, the Laurentius hospital participated actively in the erection of the monument. When parents now ask them about the fate of their stillborn children, they have to disappoint them because, plain, these children were cremated at the time and no records have been kept. The infirmary emphasises with the monument that in a way they feel responsible for what happened at the time (Author 2015, pp. 200–211). In the Roman Catholic hospital in the city of Hertogenbosch, nuns told parents of stillborn children that in those days they put them in coffins together with other deceased persons. At the fourth dimension, parents accepted these stories, but nowadays they dubiousness them (Writer, 2015, p. 183). In the village of Liempde, the wardens know for certain that more than 224 stillborn children accept been buried at the Roman Cosmic graveyard. The children were registered but until the year 1942 so the number in total must be much higher.8 The monument in Liempde (Figure three) is placed correct before a hedge nether which the unconsecrated grounds were located and where unbaptised children were buried. The monument is adorned with memorial objects, handwritten notes, flowers and funeral wreaths.

Figure three. The monument in Liempde, with the hedge and unconsecrated grounds

To many parents, after years of not-knowing, existence silenced in their grief, retracing the place of burial is a very emotional affair. The taboo on stillborn children has finally been broken. Many parents that finally their loss has been acknowledged and they 'allowed' to openly grief their stillborn children. It is remarkable how discovering the identify of burial unlocks long-time hidden memories and emotions and seems to be a benign strategy.

I will at present hash out from a theoretical perspective, how emotional places and memories part in coping with disenfranchised feelings of loss and grief.

Reclaiming places of burial

I would like to illustrate the evocation of, possibly hidden, memories from the past in relation to a particular place or object, past means of a classic example from the French author Marcel Proust. In his famous novel À la recherche du temps perdu. Du côté de chez Swann Proust describes how memories which seem to have been locked upward tin can resurface by an unexpected incident. The first – person narrator in this novel is having a cup of tea and enjoying a piece of cake, a Petite Madeleine. Through the gustation of tea and block, childhood memories are evoked. More generally speaking, through the confrontation with sure objects or places, suppressed memories may return. Edward Soja coined the term 'geographical madeleines' as a remembrance of places (Soja, 1996, p. 18). Some specific places may exist helpful in returning the memory of events from the by (Soja, 1996, p. eighteen). He typifies this phenomenon as 'a madeleine for a recherche des espaces perdus', 'a remembrance – rethinking-recovery of spaces lost … or never sighted at all.' (Soja, 1996, p. 81). Pierre Nora has similarly discussed places that bring back memories of a collective and public past, what he calls lieux de mémoire, literally 'places of memory'. Upon visiting these places of memory, Nora says, people are connected with the past. Co-ordinate to Nora it is essential to retain these places, they belong to collective history and collective commemorations: 'Without commemorative vigilance, history would soon sweep them away.' (Nora, 1989, p. 12).

Parents often accept powerful experiences when they are finally confronted with the terminal resting place of their stillborn child: the events and the emotions of those days may be relived with the aforementioned intensity at that detail emotional place. Parents of stillborn children seem to have a need to think places of burial and their history at the time, and for these places to be publicly recognised. Parents seem to need this, firstly, because of their own grief and secondly, in order to ensure the places stay in collective and public retentivity. In fact, these places accept never before been part of public memory before. The reclaimed identify of burial of the children appears to evoke many emotions. Many parents recollect it necessary to marking this identify with a new meaning as part of a strategy to start a mourning procedure. For parents this is the place where they have never been able, nor allowed, to honour their children by performing any funeral rituals. They may marker the initiation of the mourning process now by individual ritual, performed at the place, for case, by marking the identify with flowers, putting a sign with the name of the child, or by placing 'melancholy objects', like toys or cuddly bears, there (Gibson, 2004; Maddrell, 2013). Rituals may too be performed collectively, in a celebration ceremony every bit happens in Sittard and also in the city of Waalwijk where yearly a flower ceremony is organised at the site of the monument for stillborn babies.9

Marker the reclaimed place of burial

A side by side pace in reclaiming the places of burial of stillborn children is marking that particular place, as may exist illustrated at the Sittard cemetery on Figure 2. Previously, hospitals and cemeteries, together decided where and how stillborn babies would be cached. The 'conceptualized space', as Henri Lefebvre chosen information technology, the identify divers by the dominant parties and the 'space' thus attributed to stillborn children, was an anonymous and remote corner of the graveyard (Lefebvre, 1974, p. 38). Roman Cosmic government determined where children of catholic parents would be buried at their graveyards. Dominant parties also decided on expiry rituals and how the children would be buried. Parents did non have a voice in these matters. Plain, many years later these facts yet cause a lot of emotions similar sorrow and anger. Parents blame themselves that they let information technology all happen and did not object to the course of events. According to Lefebvre, a space with people acting, is always a 'social space, a tool of thought and action', as well equally an agent of control and power (Lefebvre, 1974, p. 26). At the fourth dimension, authorities controlled the space of burial of stillborn children. Parents were still immature, distressed and completely caught off baby-sit did not dare objecting. Many years later, they now have the initiative to marker these places, for example, past erecting a monument exactly at those places formerly controlled by hospital or church authorities. For example, the monument in the village of Den Dungen (Effigy 4) is positioned confronting the wall of the local Roman Catholic Church.

Figure 4. The monument in Den Dungen at the wall of the church building

Past this parents seek to take command over these places from the dominant parties at the time. They give the places a different significant by means of signs or monuments and throughout performing rituals. Parents seek to create what Lefebvre called a 'representational space', a 'lived space', a space with symbolic pregnant through the emotions and memories emplaced there (Lefebvre, 1974, p. 39). In this these parental practices may be linked to the electric current tendency to mark scenes of disaster and trauma with spontaneous and temporary, or sometimes permanent monuments (Margry & Sánchez – Carretero, 2011; Mail et al., 2003). At these places people feel connected to their lost loved ones, and in that location seems to be a need for a lived space of memories.

Kenneth Foote explores how and why sites of tragic and violent events have been memorialised (Foote, 2003, pp. 1–35). According to Foote distinctions betwixt these sites are not stock-still, changes may occur every bit time passes by.
A site may be marked with flowers, memorial notes or other remembrances to the victims thus creating a temporal or imperceptible memorial which may be transformed into a permanent memorial at a later time. Designating the site is thus often a first step towards what Foote calls 'sanctification'. Sites of obliteration are sites with active effacement of evidence of particularly shocking or shameful events. At many graveyards, the places where stillborn children were cached could be called places of obliteration.

Honouring the reclaimed place with a public monument

Many parents feel the need to honour the resting places of their stillborn babies. In Foote'southward terms they seek to sanctify the place. A condition of sanctification, according to Foote, is a commemoration or dedication anniversary, where it is explicitly mentioned what the meaning of the place is, why it should be commemorated and kept as a sacred place. Parents of stillborn children normally invite an artist to design an advisable object of art with a symbolic meaning and situate information technology on the place of obliteration. As an example, the site of the monument in Sittard may now exist called a sacred infinite in terms of Foote. Occasionally, there will be a debate about the exact place of the monument. In Roman Catholic graveyards where the children were cached at the time in the unconsecrated grounds, parents may object to erecting the monument in those locations. They consider that a monument deserves a more prominent place: the children have been put away far too long. However, 1 could too argue that by placing a monument the place will be transformed: from a 'lost identify', a non-lieu de mémoire, into a place with emotional and symbolic meaning. Another debate revolves effectually the dedication of monuments by representatives of the Roman Catholic Church building and the consecration of the unconsecrated grounds. In many cases priests have acted in this respect but in other cases parents object against their involvement. Chidester and Linenthal argue, in line with Foote, that past means of the erection of monuments and commemorative rituals, a place is transformed into a sacred identify, a place with a special pregnant (Chidester & Linenthal, 1995, p. 9). The place of burying of stillborn children is now reclaimed from ascendant parties and appropriated by parents by ways of the monument and dedication rituals. Chidester and Linenthal follow the argument of Michel Foucault on power at sacred places (Foucault, 1984, p. 252): space is fundamental in any practice of power. Parents are able to prove their cracking dissatisfaction almost the course of events at the time by reclaiming place and erecting monuments as public signs of power: lest nobody will forget what happened at the fourth dimension and their standing sorrow.

In the Netherlands more than 160 monuments have been defended to stillborn children. This appears to be a powerful strategy to cope with feelings of disenfranchised grief. Ria Ruyters and her husband followed this strategy of transforming the 'lost infinite' burying of their girl into a special place and a sacred place by honouring it with a monument. In order to do so they gear up a foundation with the name Stil verdriet ('Silent sorrow').10 The main objective of the foundation was to enhance funds to take a monument designed and created. The foundation succeeded in this objective with funding from the local municipality and hospital. Ria Ruyters' sister-in-police force, the artist Miep Mostard-Heythuysen, was asked to design the monument. The form of the monument, the heart of the lotus flower with the seeds and the umbilical cord, are a bulletin of love to the deceased child (Figure i). A dedication ceremony took place on 18 December 2009. The monument was consecrated by a priest from the Roman Catholic Church. The foundation considers that it has been successful in realising its objectives. By means of the monument a clear and lasting bulletin is given about the character of the place: 'lest we pass carelessly the identify where hundreds of children rest anonymously.' (Author 2015).

A monument equally a replacement for a grave: the case of Lies van Melsen11

Some parents have never been able to find the place of burial of their stillborn child. Mrs. Lies van Melsen's oldest son was stillborn in 1958 in the Roman Catholic infirmary of the Dutch city of Maastricht. Mrs van Melsen has never seen or touched her boy. She explains:

Yous did not cartel enquire, I was twenty-two years old, my husband xx-vii. And that was it. My husband went dwelling house and returned with a piffling white coffin, but I do non know how they put him in the coffin. Was he nevertheless naked? Did they dress him … these thoughts, they haunt me nowadays. I am fourscore-two years old. My married man died four years agone. Whenever I wanted to talk he would always say: "Oh please, let information technology be". (Faro, 2018).

When she came habitation from the hospital everything that might remind her of the baby was gone. She felt that at the fourth dimension she needed these baby things to mourn. Her mother thought it was best non to recollect of him anymore. Only Mrs. van Melsen says that it did non work. The boy has ever been at that place, in her caput. Maybe even more when she and her married man became grandparents. She has no grave to go to and she regrets that the male child has never been named. Mrs. van Melsen feels that in the absenteeism of a grave, the monument at the graveyard well-nigh Sint Pieter's church in the Dutch city of Maastricht functions equally a place to award her eldest boy. She says: 'I have the monument of my child at Sint Pieter. I think the monument is also a sign of protest, everything was unfair at the fourth dimension and we did not dare to protest. I just take to talk virtually what happened, that is important to me.' (Author, 2018).

She feels emotionally involved through the inscription on the monument that refers to her own feelings about her lost child: 'Silenced indeed, but never forgotten.' (Figure five)

Effigy 5. The monument at Sint Pieter Church building, Maastricht

Discussion: the role and pregnant of the Dutch monuments in the context of coping with disenfranchised grief

The research questions that informed this paper concern the function and meaning of Dutch monuments in relation to experiences of disenfranchised grief. In this department, I volition starting time discuss the function of monuments and so focus on the significant of monuments to parents of stillborn children.

The word 'monument' derives from the Latin word monere, which means 'to make public, to call back'. Monuments function to marker important places and events, a lieu de mémoire in Nora's terms (Nora, 1989; Foote, 2003, pp. 80–ninety), to bring aspects of the past to public attention. A second office of monuments can be said to be related to the management of emotions (Postal service et al., 2003, p. 41). Foote refers to the healing backdrop of monuments, for example, for people affected past loss (Foote, 2003, p. lxxx). Kirk Vicious coined the term 'therapeutic monument' (Brutal, 2009) in this context. Celebration ceremonies and rituals may become part of a collective procedure of mourning with regard to people directly involved but besides with regard to the public.

Adrienne Burk discusses a third 'counter – hegemonic' office of monuments. She refers to a type of monument meant to 'unsettle social relations, rather than provide closure.' In this respect Burk refers to the High german tradition of and then chosen 'counter monuments'. The design of these monuments is specifically meant to provoke fence (Burk, 2003, p. 318). Counter monuments were developed as a result of the sometimes complicated and contested aspects of celebration, for instance, in Germany after the Second World War. Counter monuments are designed non only to commemorate the past, but also to encourage and provoke spectators to reflect on the procedure and tradition of commemoration itself. Counter monuments may be considered as a way to provoke public word and became part of memory culture, in particular in Deutschland (Young, 1994, pp. 27–48; Carrier, 2005, p. 21). Maya Lin, designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., offers an interesting perspective in this context. She considers symbolism less important and emphasises that her monument is not intended to deliver a message. In her opinion, death and loss are personal and private matters. A monument and the memorial place are meant for 'personal reflection and individual reckoning'. Places where 'something happens within the viewer'. The meaning of the monument should be generated while 'experiencing' the commemorative identify past ways of (ritual) commemoration practices, co-ordinate to Lin (Lin, 1995, p. 13). Edward Casey considers Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial to be an effective monument considering information technology offers a 'public space in which the spontaneous expression of feeling and the exchange of idea are enabled and enhanced.' (Casey, 2007, p. 31). Effective monuments may be contrasted with 'ineffective' monuments like for example, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, standing in the middle of heavy traffic at an uninviting place and where it volition be hard to achieve an intimacy between the monument and the commemorator (Casey, 2007, p. 31). Savage argues that 21st century monuments are now expected to be 'spaces of experiences' involving 'journeys of emotional discovery' rather than 'airtight' objects of fine art (Savage, 2009, p. 21).

Dutch monuments for stillborn children may cover all functions as described in a higher place: they may be considered as markers of of import events (lieux de mémoire), they may accept a healing or therapeutic office and they take certainly raised the debate well-nigh what happened to stillborn children at the time and thus acted as counter monuments. The monuments seem to have multiple meanings too. They provide spaces of experience that can evoke different emotions, dissimilar meanings for unlike people. I take for example, the monument at the cemetery in the city of Veldhoven was initiated by representatives of the local Roman Catholic church and was designed by a Benedictine monk. The monument symbolises a adult female, belongings a kid in her arms. Behind the adult female, two plates of rock accept been placed. On 1 of these plates a text from the Former Attestation has been inscribed: 'I, the Lord will never forget yous.' The other plate carries a text from the New Testament, an invitation by Jesus: 'Let the children come to me.' The monument was consecrated by a local priest on All Souls 2010. In this manner, representatives of the church took the initiative to offer solace to parents of stillborn children. The practices of the Roman Catholic Church neglected stillborn unbaptised children and prohibited parents at the time to commemorate their children, something the Church now feels information technology needs to make amends for. This monument is intended to show parents recognition of the child. The question remains of how parents experience this monument, this expression of regret (Author, 2015; Peelen, 2011).

Some monuments are a sign of ongoing struggles with difficult feelings. In the hamlet of Made, the pain and sorrow of the parents are the focus of a monument called 'Het Verdrietmonument' ('Monument of Sorrow'). Here no mention is made of solace or resolution. In the urban center of Uden there is similarly a focus on sorrow and pain as expressed in the poem on the monument:

Emptyhanded

Afterward then many months of hope, we were struck by a dire fate

The last beams of light went down – our child was born in vain

Later and so many years of sorrow, the bitterness remains

The repudiation and concealing – carried on until this time

Because long-time ago our solace has been cached together with our unbaptised child. 12

In the village of Nistelrode, in that location is monument to stillborn babies chosen: Een teken ('A Sign'). In contrast to the monument in Uden, this monument signals consolation every bit expressed past the poem on the monument:

A sign of alleviation

To all those nameless places under greyish grounds

To all who could neither be called girl nor boy

To all who could neither be called father nor mother

To all looking for comfort in the shadow of oblivion

Because everything connected by love – is likewise connected past grief.

The erecting of the monuments in public space is also a sign of protestation confronting the events of the time. Some of the monuments are an explicit statement about the injustice felt. The place of these monuments may exist interpreted as an appropriation of the place. For instance, in 2003, in the village of Deurne, the remains of 45 unbaptised children which had been cached elsewhere, were reburied together in one coffin at the local cemetery. A grave monument was erected at that item place, a monument of remembrance and contemplation. At the dedication anniversary the following was said: '21 November 2003, at this identify, the cemetery in Deurne, nosotros are finally able to say goodbye to our little ones in a respectful manner.'13 In the hamlet of Groenlo the monument depicts two hands, supporting a infant. The text of the monument reads: 'To you lot, because you were very welcome in our heart and in our life, finally the identify we would like to have given you before.' The children are thus, by means of the monument, offered a respectful place, which should have been given to them long fourth dimension ago. Sometimes the form of the monuments, and in particular writings at the monument, announced as a call for awareness even reproach. The text at the monument in the village of Albergen is a direct accusation of the Roman Catholic Church: 'In remembrance of all unbaptised children buried at this place. The sorrow remains forever.' The monument in the metropolis of Heerlen is called: Doodverzwegen kind ('Silenced child') (Figure 6, 7).

Figure six. The monument 'Doodverzwegen kind' ('Silenced child') in Heerlen

Figure 7. 'Cherishing denied', text on Heerlen monument

The text on the monument reads every bit follows:

Carried dearly

Forced to let go

Cherishing denied

The artist who created the monument and the parents and support group, that were backside its creation, intended the work as an explicit argument, an accusation of the church and all those who acted at the time to silence stillborn children.14 The monument clearly carries what Post et al call the 'social critical function of monuments' (Post et al., 2003, pp. 138–156). By brining problematic ideas and emotions into the open past way of protest, the monuments tin can exist regarded as what Burk terms 'counter-hegemonic' (Burk, 2003, p. 318). According to Burk if monuments truly have a connotation of counter-hegemonic, they should also be analysed in this respect: 'While physically inert, they nonetheless disturb, and claiming quite directly what we claim our societies think.' (Burk, 2003, p. 331). Rewriting history and making articulate what happened at the time is relevant in this context.

Although the place, grade and representation of Dutch monuments for stillborn children differ, altogether they are related in their significant. They are a sign of consolation for parents regarding the loss of their child and the injustice done to them; they are also every bit a sign of protest against the course of events at the time. Instead of trying to shape private identities by creating separate memorial stones, the monuments stand for forgotten bereaved parents and their forgotten stillborn children as a collective (Francis et al., 2005, p. 173). Joanne Cacciatore and Melissa Flintstone conclude that parents seemed to employ rituals equally 'a ways of immortality so that their child could "live on" and [exist] remembered, both privately and publicly' (Cacciatore & Flint, 2012, p. 165). Most parents in their study faced a 'public to individual trajectory' pregnant that with the passage of fourth dimension 'rituals tended to become more private, at to the lowest degree in part due to questioning or criticising from others. (Cacciatore & Flint, 2012, pp. 165–166). In the Netherlands, by means of monuments erected in the public domain, parents seem to have developed a strategy to have their grief from the private to the public realm.xv

Determination

The focus of this paper was on parents who have, until recently, been 'forced' for different reasons to keep celebration of their stillborn child inside a individual context. For a long fourth dimension, their loss and grief were not best-selling, resulting in feelings of disenfranchised grief. Feelings of disenfranchised grief have increased due to the shift of paradigm into continuing bonds with a deceased, resulting in the now empathic and intimate contact between parents and stillborn children. Emotions rise when parents, maybe now as grandparents, experience the difference regarding the current approach to stillborn children: why were they at the time not allowed to bond with their stillborn child and requite it a proper farewell ritual? With the emergence of monuments to stillborn children, in the 2000s, monuments have become a strategy for parents to cope with their grief.

I have argued, that my material shows that parents of stillborn children need a 'place' in order to, finally, come up to terms with the loss of their stillborn child and to cope with disenfranchised grief. A monument, or a retraced grave, may 'work' in this respect. Sometimes, the monument, place, and commemorative ritual practices, besides mean a coming to terms with the disrespectful way in which a stillbirth was handled in those days by others, like for instance, medical professionals and the Roman Cosmic Church building. In holland an important and standing concern of many parents is the whereabouts of their children. Some have been able to locate this place, others take not. A monument may offer such a place instead, a identify for ritual commemoration practices, which may assistance in the process of handling the loss, fifty-fifty many years after the stillbirth of their child.

ane. Documentary on the Neonatology Unit of the Academic Hospital in Groningen, kingdom of the netherlands Als we het zouden weten (2008), Petra Lataster – Czisch and Peter Lataster, https://www.2doc.nl/documentaires/series/hollanddoc/2008/als-nosotros-het-zouden-weten0.html accessed 28 May 2019.

two. In this newspaper, I will follow the definition of stillbirth used at the fourth dimension of my inquiry by the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Obstetrie and Gynaecologie (Society of Dutch obstetricians and gynaecologists) in their patient education brochure on the loss of a child during pregnancy or during nascence. In this brochure stillbirth is defined every bit: 'the nascency of a child who died during pregnancy (so called intra uterine death of foetus) or around nascency': currently the term 'perinatal death' would be more appropriate, https://world wide web.nvog.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Nota-Wet-en-gedragsregels-rond-perinatale-sterfte-2.0-31-05-2013.pdf, consulted 7 June 2019. Nonetheless, with regard to the monuments, the term 'stillborn' is generally accustomed, in Dutch levenloos or doodgeboren children are common terms.

three. The results of this research were published in my PhD thesis Postponed monuments in the Netherlands. Manifestation, context, and meaning which I dedicated in 2015 at the Tilburg University, the Netherlands. All participants to this project gave their informed consent to present the results of study.

iv. https://www.nvog.nl/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Begeleiding-bij-foetale-sterfte-en-doodgeboorte-i.0-22-05-2014.pdf, consulted 29 May 2019.

5. For case, the Sint Joseph Ziekenhu is in Eindhoven, the Lambertusziekenhuis in Helmond, J. Speelman: 'Zoektocht naar de graven van ongedoopte baby's, het verloren kerkhof', in Eindhovens dagblad, xiii April 2002.

6. Idem.

seven. TV-programma Andere tijden, uitzending van xx November 2001, Dossier Ongewijde aarde, on https://anderetijden.nl/aflevering/572/Ongewijde-aarde, consulted on 29 May 2019.

eight. http://www.brabantscentrum.nl/oud_archief_2004/nieuws/0439_ongedoopt.htm, consulted on 29 May 2019.

9. https://waalwijk.nieuws.nl/evenementen/bloemlegging-bij-monument-doodgeboren-kind-21-juni/, consulted 31 May 2019.

10. http://www.monumentdoodgeborenkindjes.nl/files/stilverdriet3.pdf, consulted thirty May 2019.

11. https://nursingclio.org/2018/10/17/dutch-monuments-for-stillborn-children/, consulted 30 May 2019.

12. All texts translated from Dutch past the writer.

thirteen. http://www.deurnewiki.nl/wiki/alphabetize.php?title=Monument_voor_herbegraven_overleden_kinderen, consulted 16 July 2018.

14. http://www.heerlen-in-beeld.nl/Kind.htm, consulted 16 July 2018.

fifteen. Recently some other public strategy emerged. As of 10 February 2019, parents of stillborn children in the netherlands will be able to register their children in the Personal Records Database. The birth of a stillborn child has to be registered if the child was born after 24 weeks of pregnancy. Until now, for many parents, their child was withal considered 'nonexistent' equally it does non exist in the registration of birth just merely in the death annals. Anybody in the Netherlands who has had a stillborn baby tin can now register them retroactively in the Personal Records Database, following a alter in the law. For many parents who lost their kid at nativity long time ago, this registration may likewise work as a sign of recognition of the child, http://www.24oranges.nl/2019/02/06/dutch-finally-allow-the-registration-of-stillborn-children/, consulted 30 May 2019.

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Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13576275.2020.1779202

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