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  1. FAQs

When a baby or child has died

These books and resources may be helpful for parents who have been bereaved of a baby or child.

For further help in finding resources, email [email protected] or call our Helpline on 0800 02 888 40.


Inclusion on this list does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement by Child Bereavement UK, as we are aware that whether a resource is helpful or not is subjective and as such is a decision that can only be made by the individual.

Pregnancy loss, miscarriage and neonatal death

Expand

A Gift for Parents After Miscarriage or Stillbirth 

Zamir Hussain

The loss of a baby is probably the most painful experience a parent can go through. This guide talks about grief from the Islamic perspective using quotes from the Qur'an and Hadith.

Buy from Ta Ha Publishers

A Muslim Parent’s Guided Journal for Miscarriage and Stillbirth

Zamir Hussain

A miscarriage or stillbirth can be one of the most anguishing and painful experiences a parent can go through. This journal is on hand for you to work through your feelings with a gentle guiding hand.

Buy from Ta Ha Publishers

A Silent Sorrow: Pregnancy Loss - Guidance and Support for You and Your Family

Ingrid Kohn, Perry Lynn-Moffit and Isabelle Wilkins   

For families seeking emotional and practical support after a pregnancy loss. Well organised and easy to read this book offers practical suggestions for the many topics covered. They include bereaved mothers, fathers, grandparents, explaining to your children and what might help. Sections can be read as and when bereaved parents feel able.

Buy from Amazon

Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief

Dr. Joanne Cacciatore

Through generous, insightful writing and moving stories of her encounters with grief over decades of supporting individuals, families, and communities--as well as her own experience with loss--Cacciatore opens a space for us to process, integrate, and deeply honour our own grief. 

Buy from Amazon

Mainly for Fathers 

A short booklet containing information that many fathers whose baby has died said they needed to know. It includes sections on feelings, telling other people, you and your partner, returning to work, certificates and registration.

Available from Sands

Unspeakable Losses: Healing from Miscarriage, Abortion, and Other Pregnancy Loss

Kim Kluger Bell

Written by a psychotherapist and counsellor. Approaches for healing for women and men who have experienced miscarriage, abortion, infertility and other pregnancy losses.

Buy from Amazon

Published: 5th December, 2022

Updated: 23rd January, 2025

Author:

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When a baby dies

Expand

A Gift for the Bereaved Parent

Zamir Hussain

The loss of a child is probably the most painful experience a parent can go through. This guide talks about grief from the Islamic perspective using quotes from the Qur'an and Hadith.

Buy from Ta Ha Publishers also available in Urdu

A Guided Journal for the Bereaved Muslim Parent

Zamir Hussain

The loss of your child can be one of the most anguishing and painful experiences a parent can go through. This journal is on hand for you to work through your feelings with a gentle guiding hand.

Buy from Ta Ha Publishers

A Silent Sorrow: Pregnancy Loss - Guidance and Support for You and Your Family

Ingrid Kohn, Perry Lynn-Moffit and Isabelle Wilkins   

For families seeking emotional and practical support after a pregnancy loss. Well organised and easy to read this book offers practical suggestions for the many topics covered. They include bereaved mothers, fathers, grandparents, explaining to your children and what might help. Sections can be read as and when bereaved parents feel able.

Buy from Amazon

Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief

Dr. Joanne Cacciatore

Through generous, insightful writing and moving stories of her encounters with grief over decades of supporting individuals, families, and communities--as well as her own experience with loss--Cacciatore opens a space for us to process, integrate, and deeply honour our own grief. 

Buy from Amazon

I Promise It Won't Always Hurt Like This

Clare Mackintosh   

When bestselling writer Clare Mackintosh lost her five-week-old son, she searched for help in books. All of them wanted to tell her what she should be feeling and when she should be feeling it, but the truth – as she soon found out – is that there are no neat, labelled stages for grief, or crash grief-diets to relieve us of our pain. What we need when we’re grieving is time, understanding and to be shown that we’re not alone.

With 18 short assurances that are full of compassion – drawn from Clare’s experiences of losing her son and her father – I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This is the book she needed then.

Buy from Amazon

Mainly for Fathers 

A short booklet containing information that many fathers whose baby has died said they needed to know. It includes sections on feelings, telling other people, you and your partner, returning to work, certificates and registration.

Available from Sands

Unspeakable Losses: Healing from Miscarriage, Abortion, and Other Pregnancy Loss

Kim Kluger Bell

Written by a psychotherapist and counsellor. Approaches for healing for women and men who have experienced miscarriage, abortion, infertility and other pregnancy losses.

Buy from Amazon

When Words are not Enough: Creative Responses to Grief

Jane Harris

Everyone grieves for someone at some point in their lives. But how do we deal with the silence that often surrounds grief? How do we find ways to express painful feelings when words are not enough? In this deeply personal and beautiful reflection on grief Jane Harris and Jimmy Edmonds draw on their own experience of loss, and how the death of their son Josh has led to a creative response that is more than word bound.

Buy from Amazon

Published: 4th December, 2022

Updated: 23rd January, 2025

Author:

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When a child of any age dies

Expand

A Gift for the Bereaved Parent

Zamir Hussain

The loss of a child is probably the most painful experience a parent can go through. This guide talks about grief from the Islamic perspective using quotes from the Qur'an and Hadith.

Buy from Ta Ha Publishers also available in Urdu

A Guided Journal for the Bereaved Muslim Parent

Zamir Hussain

The loss of your child can be one of the most anguishing and painful experiences a parent can go through. This journal is on hand for you to work through your feelings with a gentle guiding hand.

Buy from Ta Ha Publishers

A Heart That Works

Rob Delaney

In this devastating, beautiful and deeply moving memoir of the loss of his son, Rob Delaney explores what life really means, and why it matters. This is the story of what happens when you lose a child, and everything you discover about life in the process. Why does he feel compelled to talk about it, to write about it, to disseminate information designed to make people feel something like what he felt? What his wife feels? What his other sons feel? Done properly or well, it will hurt them. Why does he want to hurt people? Because, despite the death of his son, Rob still loves people. For that reason, he wants them to understand.

Available from Amazon

Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief

Dr. Joanne Cacciatore

Through generous, insightful writing and moving stories of her encounters with grief over decades of supporting individuals, families, and communities--as well as her own experience with loss--Cacciatore opens a space for us to process, integrate, and deeply honour our own grief. 

Buy from Amazon

Don't Let Them Tell You How to Grieve: Lines to let you know you are not alone

Gina Claye   

Poems written by a mother who experienced the sudden deaths of her 19-year-old daughter by suicide and her 32-year-old son from encephalitis.

Available from Amazon

GriefWorks app

Julia Samuel 

Drawing on Child Bereavement UK’s Founder Patron Julia Samuel’s 30 years of experience as a leading grief therapist, the GriefWorks app was designed to effectively address the full range of emotions surrounding grief. The app pairs Julia’s advice with actionable practices and exercises, gently nudging you to record and examine your own thoughts and feelings. The app also offers more than 30 interactive tools including breathing visualisation exercises, guided meditations, daily gratitude check-ins, prompted evening reflections, and more.

Download from Grief Works

How to Get to Grips with Grief: 40 Ways to Manage the Unmanageable

James Withey

This book is for anyone who has lost someone. It may have been recently, or it may have been years ago, but still it stings like it was yesterday. In his twenty years supporting people with their own grief, as a counsellor and social care worker, he has helped others work through their despair and reconcile the injustice of grief.

With his trademark humour and warmth, he provides forty ways to help you live with and manage your grief no matter what stage you're at. It provides comfort for when it all gets too much, ideas for when you feel at a loss for what to do and more than a laugh or two to balance out the sadness.

Available from Amazon

Book: Michael Rosen

Michael Rosen's Sad Book

Michael Rosen

A very personal story that speaks to adults as well as children. The author describes feeling sad after the death of his son and what he does to try to cope with it.

Buy from Amazon

When Words are not Enough: Creative Responses to Grief

Jane Harris

Everyone grieves for someone at some point in their lives. But how do we deal with the silence that often surrounds grief? How do we find ways to express painful feelings when words are not enough? In this deeply personal and beautiful reflection on grief Jane Harris and Jimmy Edmonds draw on their own experience of loss, and how the death of their son Josh has led to a creative response that is more than word bound.

Available from Amazon

You Are Not Alone

Cariad Lloyd

In You Are Not Alone, Cariad shares all that she has learned from presenting her podcast, Griefcast. She reflects on her own grief, the grief of others, and the psychology and science behind how our society deals with death and loss. Funeral thoughts, therapy, coping with anniversaries, bad friends, good friends, birthdays, weddings, missing them, not missing them - this is grief in all its sad, surprising, awkward, tender and sometimes funny forms. 

You Are Not Alone is a road map for all of us: for anybody who has ever felt lost in grief, who would like to help someone they know through theirs, or who just wants to understand life a little better. 

Available on Amazon

Published: 3rd December, 2022

Updated: 4th June, 2025

Author:

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Books and resources

Books and resources

A list of books and resources relating to grief and bereavement and what may help. Read more

Published: 21st October, 2021

Updated: 19th May, 2026

Author: Harriet Hieatt-Smith

Others' stories

Others' stories

Find out more about the experiences of bereaved families we have supported and professionals we have supported and trained. Read more

Published: 30th November, 2021

Updated: 7th April, 2025

Author: Emma Van Allan

Understanding grief

Understanding grief

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