When you first hear you are expecting a baby it’s hard to already imagine this new life. The moment you truly become a parent is when you hear your baby’s heartbeat for the first time. This moment is when you connect emotionally and become a parent. In Belgium these heartbeats are data registered on ultrasound pictures and logged in the database of the hospital, only stored for medical reasons. When a baby is stillborn, parents never hear the heartbeat of their baby again. They have no memory left of when their baby was alive.
философия
According to the grief counselors of Child and Family, a governmental agency for child wellbeing, parents can be helped in their grieving process by recognizing the existence of their baby. How? By holding onto details like weight, length, ultrasound pictures or anything that else they can remember their baby by. But unfortunately, during pregnancy there isn’t much to hold onto.
Проблема
In Belgium 4,3%* of births are stillbirths. Losing your child is the worst thing a parent can imagine. But for parents of stillborn babies the grief is complicated as they have very little of their children to remember them by. They also feel they can’t always talk about it with their surroundings, as other people may find it hard to imagine the connection parents already had with their unborn child.
Результат
Shortest Lives is a serene audio-visual reproduction of a stillborn baby’s heartbeat. It gives proof that your stillborn baby actually existed and offers a new and personalized way of grieving. It was initiated by the University hospital of Ghent, with the help of ‘Berrefonds’, a foundation that helps parents of stillborn babies receive the recognition and support they deserve.