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Helping families through the anticipated loss of a newborn

Donor funding is enabling Sacred Heart Hospice to partner with the Center for Genetics and Maternal Fetal Medicine to provide support to women and their families who face a diagnosis of an untenable pregnancy or where the infant is at high risk of dying shortly after birth.

In these cases, our specially trained nurses and social workers offer to meet with parents to prepare for how they want the birth to go, who they would want to be there, and where they want to be. For some families, the infant may be able to leave the hospital and go home with Sacred Heart Hospice support for a few hours or days. For others, this time may be very short, and Hospice interdisciplinary caregivers assist in developing a plan for other family members to have a quiet space to meet this new infant and say their goodbyes. This is a very precious and fragile time and hospice support to older siblings and parents can be invaluable.

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Foundation funding in 2023 will allow the hospice team to increase its support to perinatal and pediatric patients and their families, and provide support for close family members who want to be a part of this very brief but precious life.

A Courageous Kids Camp Story

Courageous Kids Camp, a bereavement function of Sacred Heart Hospice, provides support to kids age 5 to 18 who are grieving the loss of a loved one. Because of donors like you, families never pay a fee for camp attendance.

July 2022 was the first in-person camp since 2020. As one of the activities, campers were invited to sew a special pillow made out of an article of clothing belonging to their loved one who had passed away. One camper asked for help to sew a sweatshirt for this pillow. This camper did not want to cut the precious shirt to make a smaller pillow, so our adult volunteer assisted the child with sewing closed the neck, waist and wrist openings, then filling the shirt with stuffing. The end result was an adult sized sweatshirt-pillow that this child carried with them throughout camp, intermittently hugging it as they would the full sized body of the person who would have worn that sweatshirt.

Imagine the impact such a special keepsake would have on a child. You make moments like this possible.

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