Naming Death:

Accompanying Perinatal Grief as an Act of Clinical Humanity

At the Maternal and Child Hospital of San Isidro, during the month of October — Perinatal and Gestational Loss Awareness Month, psychologist and grief specialist Lic. Marta Osorio de Plos offered a dialogue that opened a space for deep collective reflection on death and perinatal grief.

This essay revisits that encounter and situates it within the framework of the IPOV Respectful Care project, which promotes comprehensive maternity care grounded in the ethics of care, restorative justice, and respect for each woman’s experience.

Drawing on the insights of Ivone Olza, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Joan Halifax, and Verena Schmidt, the text invites us to rethink clinical accompaniment as an act of presence, listening, and symbolic repair.

Recognizing perinatal grief as part of the vital process is, in itself, a form of resistance to obstetric violence and a step toward humanizing the healthcare system.

On October 8, 2025, at the Hospital Materno Infantil de San Isidro, a deeply moving dialogue took place with psychologist and grief specialist Lic. Marta Osorio de Plos. Her words—rooted in clinical experience and profound humanity—opened a space for collective reflection on a topic often silenced within healthcare services: death and perinatal grief.
This essay emerges from that encounter, offering an academic and reflective reading on the value of naming death, the ethical task of accompanying pain without amplifying it, and the importance of restoring to the maternal body and to language their sustaining and truthful capacity.

One of the most powerful ideas that emerged from the discussion was Osorio’s insistence on naming death without euphemisms. To say “died,” she explained, is the first act of mental and emotional health in the face of loss. The difficulty of pronouncing that word—especially in perinatal contexts—reveals how language can become either a refuge for denial or a bridge toward acceptance. As Ivone Olza (2019) argues, the way a baby’s death is communicated and how parents are accompanied in that moment determines the possibility of integrating the loss into the family’s biography, preventing silence from turning into trauma.

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Perinatal Grief: Between Guilt, the Body, and Reality

Perinatal grief carries particular complexity because it lies on the threshold between life just beginning and death that interrupts hope. The psychologist noted that many mothers feel anger toward their own bodies, as if their bodies had failed in their task of giving life. Reconciling women with their bodies is therefore an essential step in clinical support.
Verena Schmidt (2003) reminds us that the body is the first territory of grief and repair—it is where pain takes shape and where tenderness can be reborn.

In that spirit, Osorio emphasized the importance of encouraging parents to come into contact with their lifeless baby—to see, hold, and say goodbye. This gesture, which may seem unbearable or unthinkable, becomes a rite of passage essential for preventing frozen grief. As Olza writes, “to look at that child, to acknowledge their existence, to hold them even if they do not breathe, is an act of love and sanity.”

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Accompanying Without Duplicating Pain

Professional accompaniment, as Osorio describes it, does not mean erasing pain or offering quick answers—it means remaining.
“To accompany,” she said, “is a verb conjugated without judgment, without advice, and without haste.”
The professional’s role is not to minimize pain, but neither to magnify it; it is to hold it in its rightful measure, allowing it to be lived.

This view echoes Joan Halifax (2008), who defines compassion as lucid presence before the suffering of others—a stance that neither invades nor flees, but accompanies from stillness and active listening.

In hospital practice, this kind of presence demands emotional training, interdisciplinarity, and an institutional environment that legitimizes the time of mourning. By promoting such spaces for learning, the Hospital Materno Infantil de San Isidro takes a crucial step toward truly humanized obstetric care, aware of the profound impact that words and gestures have on families.

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The Ethics of Care and Restorative Justice in Perinatal Care

The approach proposed by Lic. Osorio resonates with the ethics of care and restorative justice promoted by the IPOV project. Care is not a technical act but a relational commitment—a way of being with others, recognizing their pain without erasing it. As Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1969) suggested, accepting death does not mean resignation but opening a space for understanding and love.

The death of a child is not something to “get over”; it is something one learns to live with—to integrate into both family and professional history. Naming it and accompanying it with respect is, in itself, a form of repair.

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Conclusion: The Life That Continues

To name death is an act of clinical humanity.
To accompany perinatal grief with respect and compassion not only alleviates the suffering of families but also humanizes medical practice and strengthens teamwork within the hospital. Every word spoken with truth, every silence shared, every gesture of accompaniment becomes a seed of life amid loss.

As Marta Osorio de Plos reminded us, “Falling in love with life again” after pain is not forgetting—it is allowing memory to transform into gratitude.

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Epilogue: Perinatal Grief and the Fight Against Obstetric Violence

Recognizing perinatal grief as a legitimate part of human and healthcare experience is a political and ethical act. Denying or trivializing it constitutes a form of symbolic obstetric violence, stripping women and families of their right to process pain and to be accompanied.

Grief is not pathology; it is a vital process that requires presence, respect, and truthful language. Every word that names, every gesture that accompanies, every space that honors the time of mourning helps repair the fracture caused by institutional neglect.

Accompanying perinatal grief from a humanized and restorative perspective is also a way of rebuilding trust between women, their bodies, and the healthcare system.

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References

Halifax, J. (2008). Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death. Shambhala Publications.
Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On Death and Dying. Macmillan.
Olza, I. (2019). Parir: el poder del parto. Editorial Planeta.
Schmidt, V. (2003). Cuerpo, maternidad y deseo: aportes de la psicología perinatal. Editorial Paidós.