Coping with Baby Loss: How Therapy Can Help

Understanding Baby Loss

The loss of a baby, whether that be through miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death, or termination for medical reasons, is an experience that can shake every part of life. Whether the loss happened recently or many years ago, the grief can feel raw, confusing, and deeply personal.

Baby loss is often accompanied by a mix of emotions: sadness, guilt, anger, shock, and sometimes even relief, all of which are normal reactions to an overwhelming event. Yet it can also be a type of grief that feels difficult to talk about, especially when others don’t know what to say or when the loss isn’t openly acknowledged.

The Hidden Nature of This Grief

Many people who experience baby loss feel a sense of silence surrounding their pain. Others may unintentionally minimise the loss, saying things like “you can try again” or “it wasn’t meant to be.” These words, though often well intentioned, can deepen feelings of isolation.

Grief following baby loss, like with other types of pregnancy and birth trauma, is not only emotional but also physical and relational. Hormonal changes, trauma, and the abrupt end of hopes and plans can all take their toll. Relationships may also be affected as partners grieve in different ways, sometimes making it hard to connect or support one another.

How Therapy Can Help After Baby Loss

Therapy offers a confidential and compassionate space to explore your grief and begin to make sense of what has happened. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, and therapy doesn’t try to make you “move on”. The aim of therapy is to help you find a way to live alongside your loss with gentleness and self-understanding.

Working with a qualified therapist can help you to:

• Process emotions that may feel too difficult to share elsewhere.
• Acknowledge and honour your loss in your own way and time.
• Reduce guilt or self-blame, which are common but undeserved.
• Understand the impact on your relationships and find ways to communicate.
• Rebuild a sense of self and hope, even while carrying the memory of your baby.

Psychodynamic and relational approaches can be particularly helpful, as they explore how past experiences of attachment, love, and loss shape our present responses, helping you to feel seen, understood, and less alone in your grief.

If You’ve Experienced Baby Loss

You might be returning to work, caring for others, or simply trying to get through each day while feeling like the world has moved on. Therapy offers a pause; a place to breathe, reflect, and begin to reconnect with yourself.

Some people come to therapy soon after a loss, while others seek help months or even years later. There’s no time limit on grief, and it’s never too late to begin this work.

Therapy in Brighton and Online

I offer trauma-informed therapy in Brighton and online counselling across the UK for individuals coping with baby loss or other perinatal experiences.