Inside Duke Medicine

Helping families through the silent birth program

Davis Blount chose a topic close to his heart for his Eagle Scout project. In honor of his older brother who was stillborn, the 16-year-old built wooden memento boxes for the Silent Birth Program at Durham Regional.

“I thought I could do something to help the families at Durham Regional that have stillborns,” says Blount. “I know how much this issue has impacted my family, so I wanted to do something to help.”

The Silent Birth program began at Durham Regional in 1991, a year after Bonnie Smith, MSN, helped deliver Janet Blount’s stillborn baby boy. “I explained to her that we had no set program to help parents cope when silent birth happened,” says Smith. “Within a year, Janet was part of the team that helped get the program started.” Blount met with Labor and Delivery nurses and told them about her experience, providing input about materials to give the families.

The program, which relies on donations, allows parents to honor and remember the lives of children they have lost during pregnancy. The items parents receive after delivering a stillborn include a keepsake box filled with memories of their baby and helpful information on managing grief.

The box holds the clothes the baby wore, the baby’s measurements, a lock of hair, a certificate of life signed by both the nurse and the physician and stamped with the foot prints of the baby, a book called “When Hello Means Goodbye,” information on mourning and photos courtesy of Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, a company that enlists professional photographers to donate their time to come to the hospital and take pictures of the baby.

“The program was named Silent Birth because the mother is having a baby that isn’t going to cry,” says Smith, who coordinates the Silent Birth Program. “Parents are devastated when this happens to them,” says Smith. “Our nurses ensure that they are treated with respect and do the best we can to offer support and provide mementos to remember their child by. Many times this involves more than just the Mom and Dad; sometimes there are siblings and grandparents we have to console as well. We also have grief information specifically tailored for them and are available for their needs as well.”

Blount asked for volunteers to assist with building the memento boxes and 120 people showed up ready to sand, paint and spackle. “It was of bigger interest than I expected,” he says. “Some wanted to help in honor of someone they lost. My goal was 100 and they were finished that day.” “We greatly appreciate Davis’s initiative and desire to help these families,” says Smith.