The Best Birth Podcast Episode 38 Forget Me Not - Grieving Child Loss with Doula McKenzie Mott
INTERVIEW OVERVIEW
McKenzie Mott, a birth and bereavement doula, shares her personal journey of becoming a doula and experiencing the loss of her son. She emphasizes the importance of quality support for families going through grief and provides resources for bereaved parents. McKenzie also discusses the role of a bereavement doula in providing guidance and support during the grieving process. She encourages parents to create legacies and find ways to remember their child, and highlights the strength and resilience that comes from living for their children's memory.
TAKEAWAYS
Grief lasts a lifetime, and it's important to find ways to remember and celebrate the life of a lost child.
Bereavement doulas can provide guidance and support during the grieving process, helping parents navigate funeral arrangements and offering resources for coping with grief.
Creating legacies and traditions, such as birthdays and holidays, can help keep the memory of a child alive.
Supporting bereaved parents requires compassion, understanding, and avoiding insensitive comments or questions.
Living for the memory of a lost child can bring strength and purpose to parents' lives.
WORDS OF WISDOM
He took a big deep breath in and then he just fell into sleep, into dying.
Grief lasts. It will last my whole life.
Just be gentle and just think about your own children and how you would feel if one of them died today.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction: McKenzie Mott's Journey
12:10 Experiencing Loss: Theo's Story
23:54 Navigating Grief: Finding Strength and Coping Strategies
28:40 The Role of a Bereavement Doula: Providing Guidance and Support
36:46 Creating Legacies: Remembering and Celebrating Lost Children
TALKING POINTS
birth doula, bereavement doula, grief, loss, support, resources, legacy, celebration of life
RESOURCES
Gripe Water
Dr. Brown Bottle
Magic Merlin's Sleepsuit
Johnson's Baby Calming Shampoo
McKenzie Mott
McKenzie Mott, is a birth, postpartum and bereavement doula. She started out her journey as as pre-med student, getting ready to take the MCAT. Looking for more ways to get her resume looking top notch to apply to different medical schools, she took a doula training at the University of Utah to be a volunteer doula at their hospitals labor and delivery unit. Through this volunteer experience, school requirements, and recently getting married she found herself in the wrong career path. The doula/midwife world was it, this was her passion! With her career change in mind she started her path as a birth doula and switched her credentials around graduating with her bachelors degree in Health Promotion & Education in 2013. For years she volunteered with the University Hospital and took her own birth doula clients. In 2016 she started midwifery school, just about a week surrounding the birth of her first born son. After completing the first semester of midwifery school with a 4.0GPA, she realized school would have to wait until her children were grown. Postpartum became another passion of hers as she grew in motherhood. Then the birth of her second son Theo would be another life changing event. He had multiple heart defects which she found out at 3 weeks postpartum. He had a successful surgery and was cleared to go home and live a “new normal” life. Later when he had just turned 6 months old he was rushed to the hospital and put on ECMO where he spent the last few days of his life. McKenzie is a loving advocate for women. She understands so much about life, about crises and about death that she wants to share with the world. Her trials have lead her to be more compassionate, more thoughtful and more careful as a mother, as a doula, and as a friend. Life is never the same, and with quality support, life (and truly living) can be so much more than you ever thought possible.
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