In Today’s Issue:

🔗 The best resources I found this week
📖 Deep dive: Beyond the Birth Mother: How Entire Families Grieve Perinatal Loss - Part 3 of 3: Grandparents

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🔗 The Best Resources I Found This Week

👴 Grandfathers’ grief and the pressure to ‘be strong’
This paper focuses specifically on grandfathers after pregnancy loss or neonatal death. It highlights how deeply they grieve while also feeling responsible for supporting their partner and adult child, often coping by “doing” rather than talking.
Read on SAGE Journals

🌐 A support hub built just for grandparents
Researchers worked with bereaved grandparents to design a dedicated online network and found that a simple website offering targeted information and peer stories made a meaningful difference for them.​
Read on ScienceDirect

💔 Long-term impact of losing a grandchild during pregnancy
This study followed grandparents 10–20 years after a grandchild died during pregnancy and found that grief remained present, especially when they’d had little support at the time and had experienced multiple losses.
Read on Be Not Afraid

📖 Deep Dive

Beyond the Birth Mother: How Entire Families Grieve Perinatal Loss
Part 3 of 3: Grandparents

This is Part 3 of 3 in our comprehensive series examining how stillbirth, miscarriage, and neonatal death ripple through families. While maternal grief has long dominated the conversation around perinatal loss, groundbreaking research reveals that fathers, siblings, teenagers, and grandparents experience profound and distinct forms of bereavement — yet remain largely unsupported by healthcare systems and society.

This three-part series examines each griever separately:

• Part 1: Fathers — The Invisible Mourners

• Part 2: Children and Teens — When Siblings Grieve

• Part 3: Grandparents — The Double Loss (You’re here)

Grandparents are carrying two heartbreaks at once. They’re grieving their grandchild, and they’re watching their own child break in front of them.

Below is Part 3, written to match your “interview” tone: short paragraphs, clear, friendly, and practical for L&D nurses.

Part 3 of 3: When Grandparents Grieve Too

You’ve probably felt it in the room.
The grandmother standing in the corner, clutching her purse, trying not to cry.

She’s focused on her daughter or son.
But she’s also just become a grandparent to a baby who died.

The “invisible” grief of grandparents

Most of the research on perinatal death focuses on parents.
Grandparents show up in the literature as “by the way” knowledge—mentioned, not centered.

But when researchers actually sit down with grandparents, a very different story comes out.
They describe ongoing grief, changes in their health, and big shifts in family dynamics that last for years.(benotafraid)​

One grandmother put it this way:

That line—“this one is ours”—captures it.
For grandparents, the loss belongs to the whole family system.

The double pain: “I lost my grandchild, and I lost who my child used to be”

Grandparents talk about a “double pain.”
They mourn the baby and, at the same time, grieve the version of their child who existed before this.

In two focus groups of bereaved grandmothers and grandfathers after perinatal death, themes were almost identical: (heraldopenaccess)​

• The pain of losing a grandchild they were already attached to

• The agony of watching their adult child suffer

• Not knowing what their “role” is now

• Feeling sidelined or told to “stay strong” for everyone else

One study of grandparents after miscarriage, stillbirth, or medically indicated termination found that this grief doesn’t fade quickly.
It remains ongoing, especially when they’re the ones holding the family together. (benotafraid)​

They’re cooking meals, watching siblings, paying for funeral costs, organizing memorials.
And often, nobody is asking them how they’re sleeping, whether they’re eating, or if they’ve stopped driving certain routes to avoid the hospital.

“We didn’t know our part”: when grandparents don’t know what to do

Many grandparents say they simply didn’t know what their “part” was supposed to be.
They were terrified of saying the wrong thing, but not saying anything felt just as wrong.(heraldopenaccess)​

In one qualitative study, grandparents talked about:

• Wanting to comfort their child but being frozen by fear of making it worse

• Feeling excluded from medical conversations and decisions

• Getting very little information from staff about what had happened or what would happen next

One grandmother shared that when her daughter was finally ready to talk, she just listened:

That’s what most grandparents are trying to do.
They just need someone—often a nurse—to quietly validate, “You’re a grandparent, and this is your loss too.”

Disenfranchised grief… again

Grandparents’ grief is often disenfranchised the same way siblings’ grief is.
But it looks a little different.

A study on grandfathers after the death of a grandchild found that they:

• Felt deep sadness and vulnerability

• Were highly focused on supporting their partner and their grieving child

• Often used an instrumental style of coping (doing, fixing, solving) rather than open emotional expression

So if you see a grandfather pacing the hallway, asking practical questions, that may be his grief language.
He might be trying to hold it together because he believes that’s his only acceptable role.

When there’s more than one loss

Some families experience multiple perinatal deaths.
Grandparents in those situations described their grief as compounded.(benotafraid)​

Each loss added another layer.
But interestingly, they also reported being “better prepared” the next time in one specific way: they knew how to show up for their child.(benotafraid)​

That doesn’t mean it hurt less.
It means they had learned, often the hard way, what helped and what didn’t after the first loss.(benotafraid)​

For hospitals, that’s a red flag.
If the first loss came with little or no support, the risk of complicated grief for grandparents and strained family relationships went up.(benotafraid)​

What grandparents say helps

Tommy’s asked grandparents what actually helped them after a stillbirth.
The answers weren’t expensive or complicated:(tommys)​

• Being able to listen without fixing

• Being invited into the story of the baby (seeing photos, hearing the name)

• Having their own grief acknowledged by staff

• Being given clear, honest information so they could support their adult child later

One grandmother described how powerful listening was for her daughter—and for herself:

Grandparents also found practical tasks helpful:
Making meals, watching older children, doing school runs, dealing with logistics. (tommys)
But they stressed they needed guidance on how to step in without overwhelming the parents. (tommys)

Where nurses fit: tiny shifts that change everything

You don’t have time for a whole family therapy session in the middle of a 12-hour shift.
But small, intentional moments with grandparents can be huge.

Here are a few evidence-informed micro-interventions you can realistically do:

• Name their role.
  “I can see how hard this is as a grandparent. You’re grieving your grandbaby and watching your child hurt. That’s a lot to carry.”

• Give them one clear, helpful job.
  “When they go home, just checking in with simple questions like ‘How is today?’ can be more helpful than trying to fix anything.”

• Normalize that their grief counts.
  “You’re allowed to be devastated too. That doesn’t take anything away from your child’s grief.”

• Offer a simple script.
  Many grandparents worry they’ll say the wrong thing. A few phrases they can lean on:

  • “I love you, and I’m here.”

  • “Tell me about your baby when you’re ready.”

  • “I don’t have answers, but I’m not going anywhere.”

• Connect them to resources.
  Tommy’s, Petals, and other organizations run support lines and groups specifically for grandparents. (Science Direct)

Even a 30–60 second interaction in the room can reposition a grandparent from “background extra” to “acknowledged griever.”
That alone can ease some of the isolation we see in the research.

How this ties back to your unit and your boxes

Grandparents are often the ones who:

• Fundraise for bereavement resources

• Advocate for better care after a bad experience

When you treat them as part of the care circle, not just visitors, you:

• Support the parents with a stronger family network

• Support siblings (because grandparents often step in for them)

• Strengthen long-term community trust in your unit’s care

Your late loss bereavement boxes already send a clear message to parents: “Your baby matters.” (fmncorp)
If you can, bring grandparents into that moment too—show them the box, explain what’s inside, and let them see that their grandchild is being honored.

They will remember that.
And they will tell other families what your unit did.

How did you enjoy this 3-part series?

(Select one)

⭐️ It was extremely helpful and gave me new insight

👍 Helpful, mostly a good refresher

✅ I didn’t learn anything new, but it validated what I already do

😕 It missed the mark or I have feedback

👋 That’s a Wrap!

Before you go: Here are ways we can help your hospital

Education: Please share our newsletter with your co-workers. Our priority is empowering nurses with the tools to support patients with modern, evidence-based bereavement education.

Bereavement boxes: Our bereavement boxes were designed out of a need for a modern high quality solution for families suffering from miscarriage, stillborn, or infant death.

Reply to this email “Sample” to get a free sample sent to your hospital.

What we prioritize:

1. Tools for hospitals to create a bereavement experience for families to begin their grief journey

2. Educating nurses with modern bereavement standards and continuing education.

3. Helping hospitals build a foundation of trust and support, so bereaved families feel seen and cared for—now and in the years to come.

These boxes were born out of our own personal losses, including Jay’s (CEO) 15 years of experience working in labor and delivery as a CRNA and witnessing time and again how the hospital experience can profoundly shape a family’s grief journey, for better or for worse.

Until next week,

Trina and Jay
Co-founders of Forget Me Not