Dead Babies getting birth certificates
 

There was no reason to erase this thread. It violated no rule or the Terms of Service. You may not like a topic, but that doesn't give you the right to erase it so don't open this thread if you don't like adult discussions.

Women usually have miscarriages and stuff like this happens. It's nature. It's reality. But only in America, do the women feel the need to celebrate a life that never existed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/us/22stillbirth.html

Last summer, three weeks before her due date, Sari Edber delivered a stillborn son, Jacob. “He was 5 pounds and 19 inches, absolutely beautiful, with my olive complexion, my husband’s curly hair, long fingers and toes, chubby cheeks and a perfect button nose,” she said. So Ms. Edber joined with others who had experienced stillbirth to push California legislators to pass a bill allowing parents to receive a certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth.

-Rudey
--OOOOH MY POOOR BABIIIIIIES!

I heard about this awhile ago...it raises a whole lot of issues about even declaring it life or non life...defining what 'birth' is.

I think it was my joke that got the thread erased. So I apologize for its inappropriate placement.

Apologies accepted. We can joke about that sort of thing in another forum...like Academics. Lets stay serious here folks.

-Rudey

I'm not sure it's a new thing. My mom had two stillbirths in the early 60's and both were issued birth certificates.

One was delivered at 7 months, one was full-term, but stillborn. Maybe it depends on the state??:confused:

I know when I had a miscarriage, the medical forms called my baby "products of conception". :mad: Could that be any colder? At least give me 'fetus' or something that sounds human.

Well your moms case sounds warmer but do you refer to them as your dead siblings? To me it doesn't make sense to try and humanize it but I don't know. These are our opinions. Plus I also have heard most women have miscarriages so going around referring to them as your dead babies is even stranger than if it was a stillborn.

-Rudey

ok..I remember why it caused a debate...

article:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pb...30305/-1/RSS01

Last portion:

"... some have questioned whether the bill promotes the pro-life cause, but supporters say stillbirth cannot be linked to the abortion debate because it involves no voluntary termination. Florida's pro-choice groups haven't taken a position"

I believe the most commonly used number is 1 in 4, but that does not figure in those women who miscarry before they even know they're pregnant. The number could be as high as 1 in 2 with those.

I personally don't call my miscarriages "my dead babies" but for my son's birth (and any subsequent children I have, I assume) I had to list the number of pregnancies and number of live births resulting from those pregnancies. So someone, somewhere, wanted that information.

Also, miscarriages are losses that happen prior to 20 weeks. Anything past that point is medically considered a pre-term loss.

I refer to mine as 'the baby we lost'. Even if you were only a few months along, those children become very real to you. You think of names, make plans, feel them kick. What else would you call them? They are babies who are now dead. Seems a good name. I have a hard time with 'dead' though. It kind of sticks in my throat. :(

And yes, we always called them our brother and sister. They were buried, too. They looked like 'real' babies and everything and had names. We loved them even if they weren't 'human' by your standards. :) They were a part of our family.

One note.

I would never try to tell a woman that she had to give birth to the baby she was carrying if she didn't want to. That is her heart, her mind and her womb. I feel differently, but I am not her.

So why would someone feel comfortable telling a greiving mom that her baby wasn't even a real person? I know my baby was real to me the minute I found out I was pregnant. And this lady's baby was only 3 weeks shy of delivery. She carried that baby almost to the end. I can only imagine how real that baby was to her. :(

I understand grieving the loss and leave it up to each family to decide what to call the event.

But isn't wanted a birth certificate a new dimension in government co-dependent weirdness?

Why would a government form make this experience any more or less real for the people who experienced the loss?

My sis in law...lost her child about this time last year and it was very truamatic....they had a funeral and everything...I didnt go because it was just to unnerving..to imagine a child that never made it in the world and having to bury it so i can only imagine how her and her husband have been dealing with this....

From the article:

“The experience of giving birth and death at the exact same time is something you don’t understand unless you’ve gone through it,” Ms. Edber said. “The day before I was released from the hospital, the doctor came in with the paperwork for a fetal death certificate, and said, ‘I’m sorry, but this is the only document you’ll receive.’ In my heart, it didn’t make sense. I was in labor. I pushed, I had stitches, my breast milk came in, just like any other mother. And we deserved more than a death certificate.”

. . . .


To thousands of parents who have experienced stillbirth, getting a birth certificate is passionately important, albeit symbolic.

“It’s dignity and validation,” said Joanne Cacciatore, an Arizona woman who started the movement after her daughter, Cheyenne, was stillborn 13 years ago. “It’s the same reason why we want things like marriage licenses and baptismal certificates.”

Uh, no. You have a marriage license to document that you are legal able to marry, and later, you have a marriage certificate to prove you are legally married. You have a baptismal certificate to record the performance of a sacrament of your faith.

The idea that a form from the state will somehow compensate you for losing a child is crazy talk.

Birth certificates record live births. It doesn't make sense to complicate a process already ripe for exploitation by identity thieves to turn the form into some sort of state form based therapy.

She seems to be looking at a photo album full of pics of her dead child . . pics taken when the child was dead . . that doesn't strike anyone as being aberrant behavior? Morbid even?

I will say it's pretty Victorian. That was quite the norm back then, not just stillborn babies, but dead children, adults, etc. Whole photo albums. :eek: