. You can learn more about the making of these notelets in this video: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2023/march/baby-loss-writing-resources-tamarin-norwood-study/

Our ‘From the Heart’ notelets have been lovingly developed by Held in Our Hearts in collaboration with Dr Tamarin Norwood and Loughborough University, with the support of The Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF). These notelets are intended to support parents, through writing, to connect with and remember their precious baby. We hope they will help bereaved parents reflect and connect with the little one they love and miss.

Some parents find it comforting to write down memories of their babies, and these notelet writing prompts are here to help preserve that most precious connection. They have been created by bereaved parents who are part of the Held In Our Hearts community, in collaboration with bereaved parent Tamarin Norwood, who is an academic at Loughborough University researching the meanings families create when a baby sadly dies.

Dr Norwood said: “When parents have the opportunity to create their own stories and to really think about what that experience means for them, it can be really transformative because that lack of stories is one of the things that makes it so hard to get over the experience of baby loss.

“Very often parents find that because their loss isn’t really acknowledged socially, they’re not really sure what they have lost.

“If parents can learn to understand that it’s natural to feel as awful as they do and that these lives are worthy of many, many stories – rich, long, big stories – then that can really improve bereavement outcomes.”

She continued: “The cards we have created, and writing in general, gives parents a chance to make sense of the experiences that they’re living through and to give them an opportunity to start conversations with family and friends who may not know what to say.

“This is part of a wider goal of gradually breaking the taboo and the stigma that surrounds baby loss that means that when parents lose a baby, they feel like society understands and accepts their feelings of grief.”

Held in Our Hearts CEO Nicola Welsh says blog writing also helped her process the death of her three-week-old son in 2009.

Of what she hopes the memory writing cards and online campaign will achieve, she said: “We hope the cards and encouraging people to write will help families connect with their babies in a different way from talking therapies.

 

“My writing is a legacy for my children and gives me a tangible link to them.” (Lindsay Donaldson)