Erica’s Blog

  In 1988, October was officially declared Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month by Ronald Reagan.  I’ll bet you knew about Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but didn’t know about this.  Here in America, we don’t talk much about death, and even less about the death of a baby, whether already born or still in the womb.

Each year, approximately a million pregnancies in the United States end in miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death.  This means that each year, approximately a million sets of parents and the corresponding grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, and friends are grieving.

Whether you realize it or not, you probably know several people who have lost children, whether their babies were only a few weeks in the womb, born still, or several months old.

What can you do to raise awareness this month?  You could:

• Wear a simple pink & blue awareness ribbon OR a fancier metal or rhinestone pin OR one personalized with a particular baby’s name.
• Put a ribbon magnet on your car or a sticker in your windshield.
• Wear this shirt or this one or this one.
• Wear a wristband.
• Put a personalized decal in your car windshield in memory of a specific baby.
• Just talk about it.  Ask people around you at work, etc. if they know about Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.  You’ll be surprised how many people you know lost a child.

What can you do to encourage a bereaved mother or father?  You could:

• Get any of the items listed above.
• Get him/her a purple heart in honor of their pain.
• Take flowers to their baby’s grave.
• Contact Bears For Bereaved Mommies to get the mother a bear.
• Get her a very special piece of memorial jewelry.
• Knit or crochet burial outfits or bereavement mementoes for your nearest NICU.  If you’d rather work with an existing group, there are many, such as The Preemie Project and Newborns In Need.

October 15th is the official Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.  Across the world, people light a candle at 7:00 p.m. their local time for a global “Wave of Light” to remember our babies.  Feel free to join in.

For more information, see www.october15th.org, www.firstcandle.org,  http://parentsofangels.fingerprintsofgod.net/, http://www.handsupport.org/.

And yes, of course the baby in the photo is our Baby Paul.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.   Have you had your annual mammogram? 

Want to increase awareness?  How about making Knitty’s Boobie Scarf for yourself and some friends?  Every time you wear it and someone asks what those are on your scarf, you can ask if she’s had her mammogram yet this year.

OR, you could make a fancy chemo cap or a different one (or try the one a few pages down from the boobie scarf) for someone going through treatment right now.  OR, how about a pink, ribbon-trimmed scarf that looks like a pink breast-cancer ribbon?  OR a prayer shawl or comfort shawl for those painful chemo days? 

You could also check out Knit For Her Cure.

In memory of:

• my Nana, Euthene Conley Eggers
• Jean Stierwalt

And in honor of:

• Ann Kolesar
• Diane from Curves