Introduction
Death is a hard subject to talk about especially if one hasn’t experienced this situation it first hand. We all have our different coping mechanisms, but is getting social media involved a good idea? I argue, yes, social media can pertain to a step on the process of grieving and that it will continue to become increasing important in this process because of the amount of influence it has on society now.
Pregnancy and infancy deaths are some of the hardest situations any person can experience and coping can take some time. However, when you have a community of others surrounding you it can make the pain a little more bearable. Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep is a foundation that plays a large role in the community of families who have gone through pregnancy or infancy loss. Their photos have scattered the internet with pictures of deceased children. The question that boggled me was if these photos were appropriate to be shared on the internet for all the world to see. In order to be able to understand this pain and social media phenomenon I will be exploring social medias presence in our grieving process and how people use it to cope.
Literature Review
Losing a child can be imagined as one of the worst pains a person can experience. One never thinks that their child will not live over a day on our earth. While the families of these situations are experiencing great loss, they going through the stages of grief in which there are healthy ways that this grief can be controlled. For example, perinatal bereavement photography, similar to the ones that the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep foundation has volunteers for. Having tangible objects for families to have in memory of a lots child can be a helpful stepping stone for their grieving processes.
Bereavement Photography
Bereavement photography is not a modern idea. Families began to keep paintings of their deceased children as early as the 16th and 17th centuries (McCartney, 2007). Family portraits that included dead siblings were popular to be kept around the house (McCartney, 2007). The deceased children were often swaddled with garlands placed on their head as well as their eyes closed (McCartney, 2007). This kept the peace of the child and displayed them almost as just sleeping. Visual art portraying these children did not stop in the past but continued on to include photography in the early 20thcentury (McCartney, 2007). These photos were kept more private than their predecessor paintings until a resurgence of these photographs in the mid 1970’s (Edgette, 2018). During their time in the hospital, the families of deceased infants are given multiple options for their grieving processes. A part of this can be keeping a material item like professional photographs. The nonprofit Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep’s mission is “to introduce remembrance photography to parents suffering the loss of a baby with a free gift of professional portraiture” (“Mission”, 2019). Nurses encourage these photos because it can help the families remember the details of their babies life as well as providing a tangible memory for them (Limbo & Kobler, 2010). Parents have spoken about their experiences with Now I Lay Me Down To Lay and “state[d] that photographs are important to prove that their child did exist and to remember the child as an individual within a family” (McCartney, 2007). Throughout the ages having these photograph has brought families together with their family on earth and the one above.
Social Media and Death
As we talked about before these photos went on a decline before the mid 1970’s, but now these photos are made even more public with sharing them outside of the family unit all because of the emergence of social media. This behavior interests me, the fact that people will hide away their photos of their children in real life, but are more comfortable with sharing these relatively morbid photos online where the entire world can see them. Social media has taken away the faces of society which makes information easier to post for people. Dead babies isn’t exactly a typical topic of conversation to be had between a group of people, but why are people more comfortable sharing these difficult to a large group of stranger than close friends. “Posts about death in general have increased on Facebook since 2014” and although my study took place on Instagram this is relevant (Reinicke, 2018). Social media, in general, has become much more lenient in what people feel comfortable posting. Numerous online support groups have grown including those who have experienced the loss of a child. One support group called Tommy’s has a hashtag associated with it called #MisCourage for women who have experienced a miscarriage. Many hashtags like this exist to empower women and families to share their stories like #pregnancylossawareness which has been used 19,000 times on Facebook and #pregnancyloss which was used more than 100,000 times (“Miscarriage support”, 2019). A study was done in 2016 by graduate student Resa Ware, where she found that “46 percent of users surveyed said that Facebook had a positive impact on their individual grief journey” (Reinicke, 2018). These people who are going through an emotional time in their life find solace in social media where they can connect with others who have gone through the same pain; they are able to connect through their stories and share their support with each other. Social media is still expanding and people continue to find ease in its wide audience of comfort.
Method
I will be studying the phenomenon of Now I Lay Me Dow To Sleep photographs. These are photos that are requested by parents of stillborn babies. The purpose of these photos are memorialize the child, even though the thought of photos of dead babies is pretty absurd. How I will gather my data on this phenomenon is to search the hashtag associated with these photos, #NILMDTS, on Instagram. I will use twenty posts to analyze from every fifth post from April 15, 2019. I will not include posts that are off topic or are not posted by the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep profile or by family members who have experienced this situation. In these posts, I will observe the photography posted as well as the caption to determine if they are linked to the grieving process . I believe this will be enough data to conjure an argument on whether Now I Lay Me Dow To Sleep photos have a positive or negative influence on society.
Analysis
After analyzing 20 Instagram posts associated with the hashtag Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (#nilmdts) and I began to see some patterns arising. As the nonprofit states, it is a company for the families of infant deaths. One of the most prominent things they do is take photos of the newborn children so their families have some memorial photos to remember them by, so most of the photos that were posted were photos of the dead infants. However, there were some trend that I started to notice in these morbid photos. Almost all of the photos that were posted had a black and white or sepia filter over them. The reasoning for this is to hide the grim color of the children; it gives them a more peaceful image so that the public may be more secure at looking at pictures of dead babies. Color was also added to the babies lips, this may be from natural cause or it could be the same reason as the filter; make the baby look more healthy. Also, the babies were almost always clothed or blanketed. I think all of these trends are trying to accomplish the same purpose, to make the babies look alive. These photos are typically used for the same audience, for the families.They aren’t used as advertisements or magazines, so they are personal and endearing. They are used as a coping mechanism for those who have experienced a terrible loss of a child.
Another part of my analysis was the captions of these posts. These posts were family members or the nonprofit itself remembering the loss of a child over the internet. A lot of the photos were posted on dates of importance like their birthdays or awareness days. The captions explained the reason for the post, either celebrating the life of the child through an anniversary of sorts or reliving the dreadful moments as a way to raise awareness for the issue at hand. Some of the hashtags used were #pregnancyandinfantlossawarenessmonth, #lifeafterloss, and #stillbornawareness, so we can see the correlation of the posts in the grieving process as well as the public service announcement side. Most of the time the captions explained the grief of losing a child and could be quite melancholy as one would expect, but through these blocks of text the audience gets more backstory to the photo and is able to apply empathy to each specific posts. Society begins to connect with the stories of these families on a personal level once more of an identity is attached to each child. It isn’t just a dead baby any more but was once a living breathing person.
A trend I realized that applied to every single post was that they were all posted by women. This could be because of the demographics of Instagram, but it is still interesting because women aren’t the only people who experience grief. While men are stereo-typically more conservative of their emotions it seemed unusual that not a single post was from a man. These woman spoke of their heartbreak and poured out their souls to the internet as a coping mechanism. They realize there is an entire community around them that are there for support and to learn not to be ashamed of their loss but to remember it in healthy ways.
Conclusion
Finding ways to cope with a death of any kind can be difficult, but for the loss of a life that has barely begun strikes the hearts of humans differently. Our instincts find beauty in the innocence of children which is why many political values are based from them and their roles in society. To imagine on having to experience the loss of a child of my own in heartbreaking and I wouldn’t know how to go on. Grieving is a process that shouldn’t be taken lightly or quickly; it requires time in patience in order to do it in a healthy way. Being vocal about our emotions is often preached by psychologist, but it would be a big leap from informing your family to informing the entire world. As our time on earth continues, we will become increasing dependent on technology and a large part of this dependency will fall on social media. Like I stated before, our instinct rule our bodies and interacting with other humans is part of that and social media has taken over that area of our brains. Social media is the most efficient way to communicate to a large group of people, but when is too much? Is sharing pictures of dead children considered too much? In my opinion, it would only take someone who has experienced this type of loss who can answer that question correctly.
References
Edgette, J. J. (2018, July 6). “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep…” Symbols And Their Meaning On Children’s Gravemarkers. Retrieved April 21, 2019, from https://scholar.google.com/. Children’s Gravemarkers. Retrieved April 21, 2019, from https://scholar.google.com/.
Limbo, R., PhD, RN, PMHCNS-BC, & Kobler, K., MS, APN, PCNS-BC. (2010, November/December). The Tie That Binds: Relationships In Perinatal Bereavement. Retrieved April 21, 2019, from https://scholar.google.com/. doi:10.1097/NMC.0b013e3181f0eef8
McCartney, P. R., PhD, RN, FAAN. (2007, September/October). Digital Bereavement Photography. Retrieved April 21, 2019, from https://scholar.google.com/.
doi:10.1097/01.NMC.0000288005.18124.b8
Miscarriage support. (2019). Retrieved April 23, 2019, from
https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/pregnancy-complications/baby-loss/miscarriage/miscarriage-support
Mission. (2019). Retrieved June 23, 2019, from https://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/about-us/our-mission-vision-reach/mission/
Reinicke, C. (2018, June 1). How Do You Heal After Pregnancy Loss? For These Couples, the Answer Is Publicly. Retrieved
April 23, 2019, from http://nationswell.com/pregnancy-loss-
social-media/
Kylie's Thoughts 