ABSTRACT
This chapter explores working in twilight. Working with babies who may die involves working with trauma and grief at multiple levels and stages. The chapter focuses on referrals from neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Infant mental health interventions in these circumstances involve complex amalgams of working systemically with infants, parents, and other members of the treating team. The circumstances may also disrupt the sense of primary maternal preoccupation as described by Donald Winnicott with implications both for the mother, and the infant. To provide some context to where and how this work happens, the Royal Children’s Hospital is both a tertiary and quaternary level hospital, meaning that it accepts patients from paediatric and neonatal wards at other hospitals in order to provide highly specialised care. The death of an NICU, although unfortunately common, is unique to each infant, as are the needs of their families.
