Sumner hospital adds grief support for parents experiencing infant loss

The Helen James Foundation’s founder, Emily Long, named the organization after her stillborn daughter.

She says two things helped her and her husband get through the loss.

One was Cuddle Cot: a cooling device that looks like a basinet and will preserve a baby’s body for several days.

“We used a Cuddle Cot when our daughter was stillborn in 2018, and were able to have three days with her in our hospital room,” Long said in a video the hospital shared.

She said friends also gave her and her husband books on coping with infant loss.

“We really relied heavily on books that helped us a lot to accept what had happened and to start to navigate through our grief,” she said. “As part of the mission for the foundation, we decided to donate books and create libraries at hospitals.”

The Helen James Foundation has made similar donations in several Tennessee hospitals, including Saint Thomas Midtown in Nashville and Baptist’s Women Hospital in Memphis. It has also given to medical centers in Illinois, Texas and Florida.

Tennessee has a higher infant mortality rate than the U.S. as a whole, with nearly seven deaths per every 100,000 live births. However, it ranks only 39th for its infant survival rate. For comparison, Mississippi has the highest number of infant deaths, with 8.4 per 100,000 live births.