Actress Thaila Ayala shared this Saturday (6) what she described as one of the most difficult moments of her life: the loss of a baby in February 2021. She is now the mother of Francisco, eight months old.
At the time, she sent a threeminute audio to actress Julia Faria, her friend, to break the news of the abortion. Thayla began the sound very emotionally
“Hello, my little sister. Just stopping by to let you know that I am here during the perinatal period. No, it is not to give birth to a child. It wasn’t this time. I hadn’t stopped talking before because, you know me when the virus really spreads i go in from the shell i prefer to go through things alone and i lost the baby i went through the worst hell of my life we thought it was going to be normal be, then not”.
The actress previously spoke about the loss in October, but with fewer details. The revelation came while answering an Instagram question box. The question was if too early in Francisco’s pregnancy she was afraid to face problems.
Grief needs to be acknowledged
Grief after a miscarriage or the loss of a baby often cannot be acknowledged. For every “love object” that is lost a job, a pet, or a person there will be suffering. Also because the baby is often born long before conception or birth.
“The baby exists in dreams and in life plans. During pregnancy it is common for it to exist in the parents’ language, for example by naming it. It already exists in the imagination and symbolism of the parents,” explains Monica Venâncio, a psychologist at UFBA University Hospital (Federal University of Bahia) and in charge of the facility’s bereavement clinic.
In her opinion, it is necessary and valid for this existence that the grief faced with the loss of this idealized baby can be welcomed and acknowledged and that it finds conditions to be worked out.
How do you deal with grief? Are there ways to “get over it”?
According to the experts, this mourning is not the verb “overcome”, but “live” or “work out” most appropriately. “When I hear that grief needs to be ‘overcome’, I get the impression that it is necessary to forget the loss and move on,” said the UFBA psychologist.
In her opinion, it is necessary to understand that grief is a process in which unconscious factors are involved. “It is necessary to experience grief, for example to live with the absence of a lost baby,” he says.
The first step is to allow yourself to be sad, angry, or any other emotion that arises. It is understood that this is part of the process. “It’s liberating just to be aware of that,” says Tania Alves, psychiatrist and coordinator of the IPq (Institute of Psychiatry) grief clinic at HCFMUSP (Hospital das Clínicas, Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo).
“Just as we change when we fall in love, so too should we change in this moment of grief. You act within expectations, it’s not kind of ‘crazy’,” explains Alves.
Also because the loss of a baby is also the potential loss of “what one could and never will have access to”. “For this reason, the parents have to find out what was lost with the death of this baby. And that is very unique,” says Venâncio.
There are ways to experience this grief in a healthy way with some strategies. One of them is to create rituals for this moment. Sometimes, depending on the couple, a baby watch can help with this process.
You can even write him a letter or keep a journal about what happened. Another option is to join groups of people who have been through the same thing. The sense of belonging from similar accounts can aid in the elaboration of the grief.
But if, over time, the symptoms worsen and harm professional and personal life, in addition to health negligence, it is necessary to seek specialized help.
“Human suffering cannot always be read as pathology. Sadness, fears, anguish are part of human life. Therefore, the differential diagnosis between grief and depression is very important to assess the need for help in the respective situation,” explains the UFBA psychologist.
* With information from a report published on 11/10/2021.