[The art of being when there is nothing you can do: caring for perinatal bereavement]. / Etre là quand on ne peut rien faire: accompagnement du deuil périnatal.

ABSTRACT

The period of mourning after perinatal loss is not synonym for depression. The article illustrates a way of caring for bereaved parents, which takes into account the temporality and individual nature of the bereavement process. The use of rituals and symbolic gestures allows for calling into existence the loss of a human being, who is gone without leaving many reminders. Psychotherapeutic care by the liaison-psychiatric service is part of the multidisciplinary care program proposed by the maternity of the University Hospitals of Geneva. These encounters offer parents the possibility to continue to include the dead in the membership of our lives.