ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the effect that the unmourned loss of a stillborn child has on other members of the family. It focuses on the children who follow after the stillbirth and the difficulties they have with learning. In families where there has been a failure to mourn a stillbirth it is commonly found that subsequent children have difficulties with living and often with learning. In Sigmund Freud’s classic description of melancholia, he suggested that the patient had unconsciously lost an object for which he had had ambivalent feelings of love and hatred. The internalization of these negative feelings results in a lowering of self-esteem and ideas of self-denigration and self-punishment. Dr. Emanuel Lewis suggested that, following a stillbirth, it must be a problem for the mother to hold on to sufficient maternal preoccupation during her next pregnancy. Her whole body and mind have been centred on creating a whole, live, well baby.
