JOURNALISTS: Please, please be careful. When a woman dies near the time her child is born, her family relives those seconds, minutes, hours over and over and over again, for years to come. Something as innocuous as an incorrect preposition can deepen a wound. In the case of Ashley Picco (bit.ly/1121ePs), I have seen headlines and articles that assume everything from died in her sleep to died during labor to died in childbirth to died after cesarean to mother only a few hours. This papas pain is vast enough that it does not need exacerbating with fresh, false renditions of the scenario Im sure hes replaying over and over and over during his sleepless nights. I understand that posting personal moments comes with a set of risk factors, media inundation being one of them. But Im so grateful this was shared. Perhaps the enormous outpouring of love and sympathy being sent his way will spark an awareness, a national will, to pay attention to the fact that he is joined by 650 other families in this country each year grieving losses from pregnancy or childbirth related causes. In the meantime, I feel we have a responsibility to get the facts correct before circulating them, and in the absence of those facts, remember to give this man the space and light he needs to say goodbye.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 13:40:56 +0000
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