“Your job must be great! You get to cuddle all the new babies.”

I’ve heard that a handful of times since entering this field. And aside from the fact that I don’t actually cuddle all the babies (that’s Mom’s job, not mine!), people don’t always realize how downright hard midwifery can be. One of the hardest parts is loss.

So many people could tell you their stories of miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss. But so often, those stories go untold. Sometimes it’s because the pain is too difficult to put into words. Sometimes it’s because people don’t know how to talk about it. Sometimes it’s because the world has made them feel like their loss was too early, too small, or too long ago for anyone else to still remember or care. But every family deserves space to grieve. Every baby matters. And people deserve to know that they are not alone.

The numbers are heartbreaking. An estimated 10–20% of recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage. Stillbirth affects approximately 1 in 175 births in the United States, with about 21,000 babies stillborn each year. In 2024, 1,351 infants in the United States died from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) alone. And those are only a few of the numbers. They don’t capture every type of pregnancy loss, every infant death, or the countless families who carry these experiences quietly with them.

October brings many of these stories into the light. Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month gives us an opportunity to acknowledge the babies who are missing from our families, the parents who are grieving, and the experiences that are so often hidden behind closed doors. But awareness is about more than statistics. It’s about making room for real people and real stories. It’s about understanding that someone may still be grieving a miscarriage that happened years ago. That a family can love their living children deeply while also missing the baby they lost. That a due date, a birthday, a season, or an ordinary Tuesday can bring grief rushing back without warning. It’s about recognizing that there is no timeline for grief and no single right way to experience it. And it’s about knowing that we don’t always need the perfect words. Sometimes, we simply need to listen. To remember a baby’s name. To acknowledge a loss instead of pretending it never happened. To sit with someone in their pain without trying to fix it.

If you’ve experienced pregnancy or infant loss, I want you to know that your baby matters. Your grief matters. You don’t have to minimize your loss to make other people comfortable, and you don’t have to pretend you’re okay when you’re not. You are not alone. Not in the hospital room. Not in the bathroom where you saw the positive test turn into a loss. Not in the funeral home. Not in the nursery that never got used. Not in the quiet moments when everyone else seems to have moved on. Not anywhere.

And if someone you love has experienced a loss, don’t be afraid to acknowledge it. You don’t need to know what to say. You don’t need to take away their pain. Just let them know you remember, you care, and their baby has not been forgotten. Because behind every statistic is a family. A story. A baby who was loved. And every one of those stories deserves to be remembered.

This October, let’s make room for the stories that are so often left unspoken. Let’s remember the babies, support the grieving, and remind families that they do not have to walk through loss alone.