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"Jewish rituals affirm the essence of grief which needs to be acknowledged immediately after a loss."
Some years ago, in my work as a hospital chaplain, I met a nurse whom I will never forget. In the course of a brief conversation I asked how many children she had. Instantly she responded, "Four. Well, that includes one I lost by miscarriage." This had been a first trimester miscarriage suffered fifteen years earlier, yet the woman still counted the lost fetus as one of her children. I carry this experience with me as I work with parents who have suffered miscarriage. These people know that, while the loss of a fetus is different from other losses, it is a very real loss.
In hospitals around...