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The Healing Power of Infant Loss Portraits

4 Minute Read

By Larissa Reinboth

Stillborn baby on quilt, black-and-white photo — Image via Larissa Reinboth

Pippa has four children. Three of them you can see, cuddle, and talk to. One of them you can’t. One of them is an angel baby.

Angel babies are children who die during the course of pregnancy or shortly after birth as a result of miscarriage from various causes. In the developed world, the statistics on infant loss have remained strangely consistent over the past few decades, even despite all the advances in medicine, midwifery, and obstetrics that we have witnessed. As a result, pregnancy loss and stillbirth are by no means fringe events. One in three women suffers a miscarriage at some point in her life. Yet Pippa, having already born three healthy children, was dumbstruck with grief and disbelief when her son Noah was stillborn at 18-weeks gestation.

RELATED: We Lost Our Baby at 17 Weeks Pregnant

Little did she suspect, the well-intentioned but grossly misguided comments that would befall her from friends, family members, and strangers as they tried to sympathize or cheer her up. “It wasn’t a real baby yet, just a fetus!” “You and Mark can always try again. Better luck next time.” “You have three healthy children already. You can be a mom to them!”

Such well-meaning but entirely ignorant statements do not only provoke incredulity in and are painful for bereaved parents to hear, but they also attest to a wider problem in society.

Stillbirth, and death as related to pregnancy in general, are taboo topics. We don’t really know how to talk about this subject.

Perhaps there is something so inconceivably cruel and unfair about it that we feel an urge to look the other way. Perhaps we feel strangely guilty that another person must carry a burden we have never had to face, and how unbelievably gut-wrenching a burden it must be. There is something so primal and earth-shattering about grief and loss that we—cocooned in the artificial, well-functioning, and civilized societies we have built to shield ourselves from nature—can hardly bear to witness it.

The more immediate problem for Pippa however, was that she had three children asking her when they would be meeting their baby brother.

RELATED: The Question No Grieving Mother Wants To Hear

Pippa had a photo of her son, which was taken by a nurse at the hospital. In it, Noah’s skin looked red-raw, and his tiny chest was sunken with the pull of gravity on a body that was supposed to be suspended in protective amniotic fluid. He was resting on a white muslin cloth that had faint smudges of blood on it, and the light in his photo was somehow stark and eerily clinical.

There was no way she was going to show this picture to her children. It was difficult enough for an adult to look at.

She struggled to find a way to make the event comprehensible, to make what had happened graspable for her children, and she hoped that her eventual solution might achieve the same magic for herself, too. That is when Pippa got in touch with me.

I’m a professional illustrator, and I have been drawing infant loss portraits for three years. Pippa sent me the photo of Noah and explained that she needed a picture fit for children’s eyes.

RELATED: My Baby Was Stillborn, But Still Born

I asked whether she had a soft toy or a blanket, perhaps one she had bought in anticipation of Noah’s birth or one her other kids had had as babies. She did have such a memento. So I set about drawing Noah, tucked into the folds of a beloved, patterned snuggle blanket, in which every one of her previous children had slept as babies.

When her children unwrapped the portrait, the blanket immediately identified Noah as a family member and her children recognized him as such.

She told me they could suddenly make sense of how tiny he was and that, for all his non-existence, he was also somehow right there with them, where he belonged. She put Noah’s portrait up on the wall next to all the other baby photos of his siblings. They are now able to talk about him naturally, peacefully, and with less and less pain as the days go by.

Pippa has four children. Now you can see all of them.

So God Made a Grandmother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

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grieving grieving parents infant loss infant loss portraits loss loss mom miscarriage stillbirth

Larissa Reinboth

I am an illustrator and portrait painter from Germany and specialize in infant loss portraits for bereaved families. I am committed to the long-term improvement in care for mothers, fathers, siblings, and all those who have been touched by this loss.

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The Healing Power of Infant Loss Portraits

RELATED: We Lost Our Baby at 17 Weeks Pregnant

Stillbirth, and death as related to pregnancy in general, are taboo topics. We don’t really know how to talk about this subject.

RELATED: The Question No Grieving Mother Wants To Hear

There was no way she was going to show this picture to her children. It was difficult enough for an adult to look at.

RELATED: My Baby Was Stillborn, But Still Born

When her children unwrapped the portrait, the blanket immediately identified Noah as a family member and her children recognized him as such.

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Larissa Reinboth

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Sometimes Healing Doesn’t Look Like Moving On

Now that You’re Gone, I Sit In This Waiting Room Alone

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My Parents Will Never See This Face

The Due Date that Never Comes

Repotting Myself: What My One‑Armed Grandpa Taught Me About Growing Anyway

When I Look In the Mirror, I See My Mother

I Lost My Daughter on Mother’s Day: 3 Truths I’m Believing Today

I Miss Having Parents

Get It Now

So God Made a Mother

The Healing Power of Infant Loss Portraits

Stillbirth, and death as related to pregnancy in general, are taboo topics. We don’t really know how to talk about this subject.

There was no way she was going to show this picture to her children. It was difficult enough for an adult to look at.

When her children unwrapped the portrait, the blanket immediately identified Noah as a family member and her children recognized him as such.

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Farewell My Father: Walking the Trail of Beauty in Old Age

Sometimes Healing Doesn’t Look Like Moving On

Now that You’re Gone, I Sit In This Waiting Room Alone

She Was the Glue That Held Our Family Together

My Parents Will Never See This Face

The Due Date that Never Comes

Repotting Myself: What My One‑Armed Grandpa Taught Me About Growing Anyway

When I Look In the Mirror, I See My Mother

I Lost My Daughter on Mother’s Day: 3 Truths I’m Believing Today

I Miss Having Parents

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