HB559<\/a> after his sister’s recent pregnancy losses.<\/p>\nHe also reflected on his own experiences from decades ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a baby at one point who we weren\u2019t allowed to see and was disposed of in the trash,\u201d he said during an emotional debate of the bill. \u201cI don\u2019t know if my son is, to this day, if he went to the landfill or if he was incarcerated with the biowaste. I don\u2019t know what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilcox, R-Ogden, said he believes practices have improved since then.<\/p>\n
But “we have some ways to go,” he added. “We can do better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill ultimately passed with strong support and became law in early May.<\/p>\n
Required practices might include providing parents with memory-making opportunities (such as photos, hand and foot molds, keepsakes or written materials), offering them access to grief counseling or allowing parents to have \u201csufficient time and space\u201d with their child after a loss.<\/p>\n
The Department of Health and Human Services told FOX 13 News that it is currently working with the Office of Maternal and Child Health to formalize rules around the bill.<\/p>\n
Haley Lewis discusses the role of Share Parents of Utah and the importance of mementos after a death:<\/p>\n
Haley Lewis<\/p>\n
‘I was so depressed’<\/p>\n
When Jawish began working with the Stillbirth Center of Excellence at the University of Utah, she was surprised to learn that she knew people who were struggling with pregnancy loss even decades later.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey still talk about it with the same pain,\u201d she said in an interview with FOX 13 News. \u201cIt\u2019s like… it looks like it\u2019s very raw to me, as a mental health provider. And that was very kind of eye-opening for me and very humbling.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Stillbirth Center is among the leading institutions in the country working to address the nation\u2019s stubbornly stable stillbirth rates, through a combination of training, research, education, advocacy and in-clinic care.<\/p>\n
Among its goals is to double the proportion of families who receive grief counseling or other bereavement support after a loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving mental health support embedded as early as possible not just improves the mental health outcomes; it prevents worsening mental health outcomes,\u201d Jawish said.<\/p>\n
When families don\u2019t receive needed support, the impacts can be long-lasting and wide-reaching, notes Dr. Bob Silver, co-director at the Stillbirth Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese families have tremendous mental health issues,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cOften that leads to divorce. It can lead to difficulty in raising other kids. It can lead to disrupted marriages, substance use disorder. A lot of downstream time off from work and careers derailed and those kind of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the Stillbirth Center looks to support families even years after a loss, it\u2019s also worked to ensure hospital staff are equipped to respond to stillbirths in the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stenographers, the nurses, the medical assistants all undergo specific training to become better able to emotionally support these folks and to say things that are supportive and not triggering and harmful,\u201d Silver said. \u201cEducation is a huge component of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silver explains the long-lasting mental health impacts of stillbirths for families: <\/p>\n
Dr. Silver<\/p>\n
Lewis saw the mental health outcomes of her loss manifest physically, as she said her weight approached nearly 300 pounds \u201cbecause I was so depressed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t think that I could continue on without having my other daughter,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
She said support groups, the mementos, and events like remembrance walks have gone a long way to helping her work through her grief. But she believes the loss will always have a profound impact on her life.<\/p>\n
“One week you are under the covers and hiding,\u201d she said, \u201cAnd the next week you\u2019re perfectly fine and you\u2019re serving people that need your help.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she works with families who have experienced a loss, Lewis told legislators that she\u2019s seen \u201cthe quality of care they receive in those first moments profoundly shapes their long-term healing.\u201d<\/p>\n
And she hopes the new law will now ensure all parents who lose their children have a chance to honor and remember them.<\/p>\n
“I hope, at least, if it\u2019s done correctly through Health and Human Services, everyone gets mementos for their babies,\u201d she said in an interview. \u201cEveryone gets to know that their loss is valid and gets the time to grieve.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AMERICAN FORK, Utah \u2014 When Haley Lewis gave birth to twin girls in December 2021 after years of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-738498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}