Baby Loss Awareness Week Session

• Advertise what this session is about in advance and arrange prayer and pastoral care support – along with a box of tissues
• If there are people in the group who you know have been through baby loss, you may like to ask them beforehand if they would like to share their story so that they can prepare
• Have a candle for each member, eg a tea light, and have some matches or lighters. You might also like to have a large lit candle on a table
• Research stories from babyloss-awareness.org
• Plan to use the song videos ‘With me always’ by LIFE Worship and ‘God of comfort’ by CH Worship

Be sensitive as this session deals with miscarriage and baby loss which members may find distressing. 

Did you know that one in four pregnancies in the UK end in loss during pregnancy or birth? 

For many years miscarriage and baby loss wasn’t spoken about and many women and men went without help and support to grieve and remember their loss. In 2002 a Baby Loss Awareness Day was organised, and it soon became a whole week which runs between 9-15 October each year.

Baby Loss Awareness week gives the opportunity for people to mark and remember the babies that are no longer with us. It encourages people to talk about loss and grief and signposts people to some fantastic charities that help and support those who are grieving. 

At 7 pm on 15 October people are encouraged to produce a wave of light by lighting a candle in remembrance of the babies and as a sign of solidarity with grieving families.

SHARE

Perhaps someone in your group has been through baby loss and is confident in sharing their story. Give an opportunity for them to share. 

Alternatively share some stories from babyloss-awareness.org, which features many stories of people who have gone through the grief of baby loss, including those who helped begin Baby Loss Awareness Week. Share a couple of these stories together and discuss the impact of the stories on the group.

DISCUSS

Encourage members to consider ways they might be a help or comfort to those in our communities who are lonely or grieving, particularly those walking through baby loss. Challenge people to put their ideas into practice, to be God’s comfort to them.

REMEMBER

Towards the end of the session give each person a candle. You might like to have a large candle on a table already lit. Ask members to consider the stories they have heard, the memories of their own grief, or the stories of friends and family members. They may know the name of a baby that is no longer with us.

As you listen to and watch the song video ‘With me always’ by LIFE Worship, invite people to come up and light their candle as a sign of remembrance. 

Often when we go through times of grief and sorrow we can feel completely alone. Many stories of women and men who have gone through the trauma of miscarriage and baby loss talk about the feeling of loneliness and isolation, and this is one of the reasons why Baby Loss Awareness Week is still marked 20 years on. 

Even if baby loss isn’t part of your story, we can all remember a time when we felt particularly isolated, like no one understood or cared. We all go through times when we feel like we are in the wilderness, with nothing around us. 

However, God assures us in his word that we are never alone, and Psalm 139:1-12 talks about a God who is always with us, no matter what we are going through. These verses assure us that even in the midst of our grief and pain, God is sitting there with us, drawing close. In fact, Psalm 34:18 declares that God is close to the broken-hearted. 

Sometimes God uses us to show his love and compassion to those around us who are grieving. He might use us to be a listening ear, to provide a much-needed home-cooked meal or a gift that assures them that there is still hope. For many people who have gone through miscarriage or baby loss, having a friend who will remember and mark the life that has been lost, maybe by participating in the ‘wave of light’, can help them feel a little less alone. The challenge for each of us is how might we be more open to God to be the comfort that somebody needs right now.

Share the song video ‘God of comfort’ by CH Worship.

PRAYER

Use the words of SASB 755 ‘God of comfort and compassion’ as your prayer today.

‘God of comfort and compassion,

God of wisdom, grace and power, 

Hear our earnest intercession

In this quiet evening hour.

Strengthen all who fight thy battles

In this land and lands afar,

Be companion, friend and shepherd

Whereso’er thy children are.’

• SASB 63         ‘The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want’

Watch the lyric video to the tune of Crimond by BBC Songs of Praise, H Goodall’s lyric video (Vicar of Dibley theme tune) or Stuart Townend’s lyric video.

• SASB 197       ‘Say, are you weary? Are you heavy laden?’ (‘I know a fount’)

Watch the lyric video by USAEastMusic. (NB This is not to the usual melody.)

• SASB 378       ‘Lord, I come before your throne of grace’ (‘What a faithful God have I’)

Watch the lyric video by St Albans Salvation Army. 

• SASB 527       ‘When I’m tired and nothing’s going right for me’ (‘Share my yoke’)

Watch the music video (no lyrics) by Chelmsford Citadel Songsters, the lockdown music video (no lyrics) by The Salvation Army Ottawa Citadel or the instrumental version with lyrics by Stotfold Salvation Army. 

• SASB 848       ‘I shall not fear though darkened clouds may gather round me’ (‘I’m in his hands’) 

Watch the instrumental duet lyric video by Melbourne SALVOS, the soloist lyric video by Salvation Army Worship or the lyric video by Phil Laeger. 

• ‘I am not alone’ by Kari Jobe 

Watch the lyric video uploaded by The CatLadyJ.