Community Spotlight: Empty Arms Bereavement Support
Meet our January 2025 Community Spotlight organization. Empty Arms Bereavement Support serves individuals and families in Massachusetts and nationwide whose babies have died through miscarriage, stillbirth, early infant death, or termination for medical reasons.
By cultivating personal connections, creating a compassionate community, and fostering professional collaborations, we provide grieving parents with valuable resources and validation as they navigate the murky days, weeks, and lifetime without their baby.
Our very first meeting was in 2007—we established first as a general support group at Cooley Dickinson, serving people who had experienced any kind of pregnancy or infant loss. In 2011, we incorporated as a 501(c)3 with the above mission. This is when the companion programs were established at Franklin and Holyoke medical centers.
Our goal was, and always has been, to provide community to those who have experienced pregnancy and/or infant loss, in the form of time of loss support, support groups, and individual connections.
Here’s what I’ll say about our work—
When a baby dies during pregnancy, at birth, or early in life, it is nearly always unexpected and parents shift suddenly from a place of joyful expectation to one of deep sadness, confusion, and disappointment. In the US, we typically envision grief as a hurdle to be overcome, but in fact it is a process that is experienced over time. Baby loss is especially complicated because a parent’s investment in their baby begins early in pregnancy and is biologically rooted. Early bonds reshape the way parents view themselves, their living children, and their future. Those around them, however, have not re-organized around the baby and their investment is much less than that of the parents. This means that bereaved parents’ existing support people often don’t understand just how devastating the loss of a baby is, and are then unable to offer meaningful support to grieving parents in the wake of a baby’s death. The resulting isolation for parents can have negative impacts that extend far into the future.
EABS uses a trauma-informed, tested approach to normalize the grief process. When parents grieve in isolation without a clear understanding of what perinatal grief typically looks like, the ripple effects can include PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Any of these impact partner relationships and a person’s ability to parent their children, both living and future. EABS’s bedside companion programs, support groups, and community events provide context for the trajectory of this disorganized state of sadness. In our spaces parents establish an identity as their baby’s parents, and create unique relationships with other bereaved parents. At EABS, the words and emotions of parents are heard and not judged. We train medical professionals in trauma-informed approaches, so that they can better meet the needs of parents facing the shock and grief of losing a pregnancy or child. We model how to endure grief and learn to live with joy over time, giving families a community that holds and comforts them rather than awkwardly holding them at an arm's length, hoping for a speedy recovery. All of our programs and services are guided by current research, are trauma informed, and provided by experienced, trained staff and (stipended) volunteers.
Our ultimate hope is that some parents will one day want to help another family, creating a chain of support and love over the years. When new members are connected with peers from their own community, this often results in friendships that last for years. Meaningful relationships within the Empty Arms community benefit not only the parents, but the living children they have and those who will be born after the loss—strengthening the bandwidth and resiliency of those who must continue parenting living children in the face of devastating loss. Time and time again, people say that EABS events “feel like a family reunion”. By giving people a strong, collective, community-based foundation to their grief, we strengthen their lives overall.
How would you describe the impact of your work?
It's priceless and beyond description. We show up- in very simple but meaningful ways for people who are deeply in crisis and sit with them, without judgment, as they process. We provide them with quick links to the resources they need, because we've sat with people in similar crises in the past. We provide people with community connections, mementos, and friendship.
(Space reserved for stories of impact)
What program or project are you most excited about developing/expanding over the coming years, and why?
In the upcoming year, EABS will be designing and implementing a new, 3-year strategic plan that will include expanding staff and ensuring that all of our programs, procedures, and strategies are well-documented and organized. This plan will be designed by a group of staff, board, and community members, and will guide our work over the next 3 years.
As part of our solidification, we hope to hire two more part-time staff members, both from within the loss community and with personal experience and professional skill sets that would benefit EABS. This will provide multiple perspectives, strengths, and diverse opinions, and will allow for staff-led, strategic, and sustainable growth that is rooted in the integrity, heart and mission of the work.
The decision to focus our energy on internal growth and stabilization results from the work that has taken place over the past year. While our goals were to lean heavily into our work expanding into the Latino community in Hampden county, competing demands continually diverted our attention away from that project. Emergency rooms needed packets and brochures for their miscarrying patients—a population that needs to be handed information at the moment of loss. Provider offices needed to be restocked with miscarriage comfort kits and information, along with resources for patients who were facing a poor prenatal diagnosis. All these resources were redesigned and reprinted. As this was happening, a need arose for better organization of our drives so that items could be more easily located when needed. We also realized that a major point of access for all of our communities—our website—was desperately in need of rewriting and reorganization. Expanding who we serve—in a way that truly centers their needs—is only sustainable when we are centered and grounded as an organization.
Our primary goal this year is to strengthen our internal infrastructure and staff so that we have the resources to meet our primarily programmatic goal: to understand and meet the needs of the Puerto Rican community in Hampden County. In order to achieve this goal of meeting the diverse needs of all bereaved parents in our community, we must first pause, organize, and strengthen our infrastructure.
What are a few simple things an individual can start doing that could make a difference in the lives of those you serve?
When someone shares with you that they've lost a loved one, say, "I'm so sorry. This must be so hard". And nothing else.
Pregnancy loss happens often, and when it happens to someone you care about, show up! Being there is so important and offering specific acts of help/support helps even more.
Grief is a normal part of living, and grieving people need to be held and listened to, not avoided. Grief is a normal process by which people integrate the absence of a loved one into their lives. Support from the community is crucial during this time.
Get Involved:
Put EABS’s annual Syrup Stampede on your calendar! Registration will be open in January. This day of joy brings together bereaved families, their families, and the greater Northampton community to share in an early spring walk/run and an outdoor, local-syrup infused pancake breakfast. It’s such fun, and coming to participate or volunteer is a wonderful way to celebrate the need for this community!
