Memory Making
Some parents choose to create keepsakes and mementos to help them process their loss and give them something to hold on to and cherish. There are many companies that offer memorial keepsakes, or you can create your own memories and traditions.
Below are some ideas of ways families have created memories to celebrate their babies.
Memorials and plaques
Glover Memorials are members of the New Zealand Monumental Masons Association, based in Lower Hutt, and offer free plaques for stillborn and newborn babies. Your local headstone company may also do the same, if you’d like to talk with someone in your town or city.
Memorial box
A memorial box is a great way to remember all the items you collect during your baby’s pregnancy and birth, as special memories of their short but special life. This could include scan photos, pregnancy and baby photos, locks of hair, umbilical cord clamps, hospital name band if baby had one, clothing they wore, dried flowers given to you at their birth, and any cards you received from loved ones.
Name a star
You can name a star after your baby, which will include receiving a certificate, gift set and fact sheet about your star including a map to help you spot it.
Hand and footprints
Many hospitals and local Sands New Zealand groups will have access to inkless hand and footprint kits, so you can create a lasting memory of your baby. You may also want to have a cast taken.
Photographs
The organisation Heartfelt offers a free service gifting photographic memories to families that have experienced stillbirth, premature births and neonatal deaths. Taking photos of your baby may seem strange or difficult at the time, but it can a very special memory for you to look back on in years to come. These photos may be during labour as well as after your baby is born. You may like to get close ups of their face as well as other parts of their body like their hands and feet, and even have some photos of you holding your baby.
Cremation ashes
If you decide to cremate your baby, there are many specialty urns or vessels designed for baby’s ashes, including vessels shaped as a heart or a soft teddy bear.
Jewellery
There are a number of New Zealand companies who take very special care in helping families create lifelong treasures and keepsakes when a baby dies. Luna Bloom encapsulates items such as breastmilk, a lock of hair, or a special piece of fabric into a keepsake piece of jewellery. My Angel sells cremation jewellery allowing you to always keep the ashes of your baby close to you. Smallprints and Fingerprints create jewellery keepsakes using the hand or footprints shrunk down to fit on to necklace pendants and other items.
Most jewellery designers will be able to create an item of jewellery using your baby’s initials or birthstone, or you could keep a photo and lock of hair inside a locket.
Memorial bears
Memorial bears can be customised with a name, date and message. Some can be made to match the height and weight of your baby, or made with a fully-lined space made within the bear so that the ashes of your baby can be stored inside the bear. The Onesie Bear NZ makes custom memory bears or pillows from clothes or a blankets, allowing you to use special items that mean something to you. Huggable Hearts make customised hearts to match the weight of your baby, you can customise these by using material from a clothing item or blanket belonging to your baby.
Lighting candles
Lighting a candle to remember your baby is a tradition that can be repeated on anniversaries, or on significant occasions such as Baby Loss Awareness Week which runs from 9th to 15th October every year in New Zealand.
Birth certificate or a certificate of life
If your baby was born after 20 completed weeks, or weighed more than 400g or was born alive, you can apply for a birth certificate. The Sands Certificate of Life is also available for parents whose baby is born at any gestational age.
Support from Sands New Zealand
Sands New Zealand is a nationwide network supporting families who have experienced the death of a baby. There are over 25 parent-run, non-profit groups around Aotearoa. Sands is run by volunteers and most Sands members and supporters are also bereaved parents.
The Sands New Zealand website is a wonderful resource that promotes awareness, understanding and support for those dealing with the death of a baby in pregnancy, birth or as a newborn, and due to medical termination or other forms of reproductive loss. Many Sands groups provide memory boxes for people who have lost a baby – these include two teddy bears, one to be buried or cremated with your baby, and one to stay with the parents.