Initiative Rainbow "Happiness Pregnancy"
| Initiative Rainbow "Happiness Pregnancy" | |
|---|---|
|
|
| purpose | Self-help for orphaned parents |
| Chair: | Sandra Silkenat |
| Establishment date: | 1983 |
| Seat : | Open |
| Website: | www.initiative-regenbogen.de |
The Rainbow “Glücklose Pregnancy” initiative is a national, non - profit self - help group . It has made it its mission to support orphaned parents who have lost a child through stillbirth , premature birth , miscarriage or shortly after birth.
history
In 1983, the Rainbow Contact Group was established by two affected mothers - Barbara Künzer-Riebel and Regine Schreier. In the following year, the first rainbow discussion group was founded in Germany. In 1987, after working together on the publication of a literature list, the official merger with the self-help group Happily Pregnant from Frankfurt am Main took place . From then on, the self-help group was called the RAINBOW initiative “Happiness in pregnancy” . In 1990 the initiative was recognized and registered as a non-profit association. In 1994 the association founded a sister organization in Austria. In 1998 the association received the donation seal of the “Register of German Donation Organization” (rds). Today he has supraregional and regional contact persons, cooperating self-help groups and committed other people at home and abroad. Numerous relevant publications also refer to the work of the association.
The initiative has been a member of the Compassionate Friends since 1985 .
aims
The parents' initiative wants to break a taboo in Germany: One does not talk about the death of such young children, there is no place in society to grieve for their loss, and the whereabouts of babies who died so early was a closely guarded secret well into the 1990s . With or without membership, those affected can get support in difficult moments during and after the death of their child. The same applies to close relatives, relevant professional groups and other interested people. Right from the start, the initiative built on the so-called snowball effect : the more people are convinced of the sense of their commitment, the faster the situation can be improved, especially in the clinics.
materials
In 1985, the initiative published the Parents Brochure Rainbow, a brochure for orphaned parents who lost their child through miscarriage or stillbirth or shortly after delivery *. The first edition comprised 100 issues, in 2010 there were almost 100,000 copies. First invitations to further training at midwifery meetings in Bad Boll , Würzburg and the like. a. arrived.
The initiative in 1986 developed the first wish list for the area of "gynecology / delivery room". a. the urgent request contained that concerned parents no longer withhold their child. Mothers and fathers should be able to see and hold their child and get a photo of him. This demand caused great misunderstanding in the clinics.
Founder Barbara Künzer-Riebel and Gottfried Lutz published the first book on this topic in German in 1987 with the help of their own experiences and those of the initiative: Just a breath of life . The target group are those affected in their experience and grief as well as midwives, doctors, nurses, pastors . The intention is to recognize the grief of affected parents and to rethink the delivery room, maternity ward and public. Work aids for hospital staff (delivery room files, mosquito baskets, parents' folders) and for pastors for the funeral of miscarried or stillborn children were created by the “Public Relations” team of the REGENBOGEN initiative and distributed to hospitals in a targeted manner. Three extensive brochures with field reports followed.
At the suggestion of the Ministry of Social Affairs in Baden-Württemberg, a certificate for maternity clinics was drafted in 1988 to enable parents / mothers of miscarried children under 500 g to be buried. Parents can use it to try to have their child buried in the local cemetery. For parents of miscarried and stillborn children, information sheets on the burial of their babies followed. In a few federal states children under 1000 g can be buried, in most of the federal state burial laws, however, a child is only required to be buried above 1000 g, in others nothing is regulated. These sheets should be given to the parents in the clinic together with forms for pathology and cemetery administration. However, parents often do not find out about burial options.
The club's first picture book, “The Borrowed Star”, was published in 2003.
Projects
In 1989 an extensive questionnaire was initiated in which affected parents / mothers were asked about their wishes in order to have a representative survey for the argumentation of our demands.
Subsequently, until 1992, all West German bishops were written to with the request for support of the 1988 petition on the civil status law and support for the amendment of all country burials. The reactions ranged from no understanding until the German Bishops' Conference wanted to advocate the cause.
Furthermore, this year the association distributed free "Moseskörbchen" (bast or wicker baskets in which the smallest of the little ones are bedded) to the delivery rooms of many German clinics in order to reduce any inhibitions that may exist when showing the miscarried and smaller stillborn babies.
The “Delivery room folder” campaign was initiated in 1995: almost two hundred folders were distributed free of charge to clinics / delivery rooms filled with materials and information from the REGENBOGEN “Happily Pregnant” eV initiative. This campaign was made possible by a donation from the Rottenburg-Stuttgart diocese . Parent folders are designed and distributed to be used as a storage box for personal belongings of the dead baby. In a “clinic campaign”, German clinics were asked how they deal with miscarried or stillborn children in their home. The answers led to a so-called INFO folder for clinics. It lists the options for the burial of children whose weight is below the burial limit applicable in the respective federal state. It also contains the information from the responsible authorities of the federal states, which consider burial below the currently applicable weight limit to be possible despite the lack of provisions in the state funeral law. This action resulted in the “Gräberfeld” campaign (1999), in which the creation of (anonymous) grave fields for miscarriage and stillborn children is to be initiated.
As a new project, the first co-financing of a tombstone for the new children's graveyard in Berlin, which was created under the leadership of Jutta Bartholomé, took place in 2000 . Furthermore, the initiative awarded an award to the “Ecumenical Project Children's Grave” Hanau for the design of an exemplary grave field.
Petitions
The founders of the initiative, Hermann and Barbara Riebel, wrote a petition to the German Bundestag in 1988 with a request to amend the German personal status ordinance . The content was the abolition of the 1000 g limit for the definition of miscarried babies as well as the possibility of legal naming for stillborn babies, associated with an entry in the family book. This petition was initially rejected and an objection was lodged.
At the same time they wrote a petition to the Baden-Württemberg state parliament asking for a general burial option for stillborn babies weighing less than 500 g, which were also rejected in 1988 and 1994. Further petitions to the state parliaments of other federal states (except in Bavaria, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony, Bremen, as already sufficiently regulated) followed. Some of the state laws were changed, other countries are still giving advice today without result.
A partial success of the petition submitted in 1988 made it possible to amend the Civil Status Act on April 1, 1994 with regard to the definition of "stillborn". With immediate effect, all children over 500 g were registered under civil status, a supplementary period also gave previously affected parents the choice of entering their children in the family register. With this result, fundamental changes in the funeral laws of the federal states were finally possible (e.g. Rhineland-Palatinate, Bavaria and Saxony).
In 1995 another petition was submitted to the Bundestag with a request to amend the Personal Status Ordinance. The content was once again the future legal naming for stillborn babies, the previously anonymous entry is to give way in the future in favor of a name entry in the family book. This was decided on February 6, 1998 in favor of those affected and came into force on July 1, 1998. A supplementary period also gave previously affected parents the option of entering their children in the family register.
Further petitions to numerous federal states with inadequate funeral laws followed, some successfully. Refusals were justified by the fact that miscarriage and stillborn children could be buried without any problems or on request. However, this did not correspond to everyday German cemetery statutes.
The petition to the Bundestag in 1999 asking for a general right to maternity protection after childbirth or after the termination of a pregnancy for medical reasons was rejected on June 8, 2000.
Others
Many groups for orphaned parents now bear the name of the book and are mostly part of the initiative. Grave fields are also often named after them throughout the Federal Republic.
During the creation of her book Gute Hoffnung - abrupt Ende, Kösel-Verlag, there was a good and informative collaboration with Hannah Lothrop .
To date, almost 1,000 burial grounds and memorials in Germany have been initiated with annual commemoration ceremonies, and the costs are increasingly being borne by sponsors (municipalities, private initiatives, clinics).
Summary
The work of the initiative is still successful today. Many clinics already try to provide good care for those affected in the delivery room; souvenir photos, footprints and handprints of the deceased babies are taken and given out. Information about self-help groups, grief counselors and literature are just as much a part of the offer as the possibility for voluntary employees of self-help groups or grief counselors to look after the parents in the clinic if requested. These support the mothers and fathers not only in the emotional area and accompany in individual cases with the adoption of their child, but also in practical matters such as clarification of funeral questions, accompaniment in conversations with undertakers and at the burial. In the time after the discharge, they provide support in the funeral talk individually or in groups.
Today, many grief counselors also look after parents in the event of an imminent medical abortion ; these discussions are increasingly being recommended by doctors who provide the indication. Parents in this situation are no longer stigmatized, but experience the loss of their child like a miscarriage or stillbirth.
The funeral laws of almost all federal states from 2000 took into account the personal status ordinance of 1994 and define a stillbirth weighing at least 500 g as a corpse. In most countries, there is a burial obligation from 500 g. Miscarriages can be buried if at least one parent so wishes. Many federal states have enshrined in law the general duty to inform parents about funerals. The definition and burial of children from medical abortions is also increasingly being incorporated into the law. Hesse is the only federal state to have no regulation.
Current efforts by those affected to obtain a legal right to burial ( not an obligation ) for all miscarriages are available to the Petitions Committee.
Awards
- 1984: Award as an exemplary self-help group , awarded by Helmut Kohl in the Federal Chancellery in Bonn .
- 1997: Acknowledgment prize from “Demokratie Leben” for exemplary work in the social field, awarded by Rita Süssmuth .
- 2005: Sign of life 2005 , awarded by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Friedhof und Denkmal (AFD).
literature
- Barbara Künzer-Riebel, Gottfried Lutz: Just a touch of life: Parents report on the death of their baby and the time of their mourning Ernst-Kaufmann-Verlag, Lahr 1997. (6th extended edition. 2002, ISBN 3-7806-0951- 7 )
- REGENBOGEN initiative “Happily Pregnant” eV: “The borrowed star”, available from the REGENBOGEN initiative
Individual evidence
- ^ Reimer Gronemeyer, Erich Loewy: Where to go with the dying? Hospices in Europe, approaches to a comparison . Lit Verlag , 2002, ISBN 3-8258-6011-6 , pp. 125 .
- ↑ Anke Rohde, Almut Dorn: Gynecological psychosomatics and gynecological psychiatry: The textbook . Schattauer Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-7945-2460-0 , p. 197 .
- ↑ Children's grave in Hanau. ( Memento from November 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Barbara Künzer-Riebel, Gottfried Lutz: Just a breath of life. Parents tell of the death of their baby and the time of their grief . Ernst Kaufmann Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-7806-0951-7 , pp. 200 .
- ↑ Barbara Künzer-Riebel, Gottfried Lutz: Just a breath of life. Parents tell of the death of their baby and the time of their grief . Ernst Kaufmann Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-7806-0951-7 , pp. 191 .