Some parents in Singapore are choosing to claim and cremate foetal remains after early miscarriages, a practice that is gaining acceptance.
In 2018, Estelle Goh suffered a miscarriage at nine weeks. After a D&C procedure, she struggled to find a funeral provider willing to cremate the remains. Most only handled stillbirths at or after 24 weeks. She eventually found Harmony Funeral Care, placed the remains in a tiny coffin with her pregnancy test and ultrasound, and watched the cremation.
"It made the pregnancy loss feel real," Goh said. "The foetus was not just an unnamed thing in my body that was purged and thrown away."
Hospital protocols vary. At KK Women's and Children's Hospital, patients are informed they may request remains after any miscarriage. At Singapore General Hospital, the ability to claim depends on whether remains are identifiable. National University Hospital does not routinely offer the option for first-trimester losses.
Dr. Douglas Ong, an OB-GYN at Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre, now offers all early miscarriage patients the option to claim remains. He developed a process after a patient asked, "What are you going to do with my baby?" He provides baby-sized urns and contacts for cremation services.
Harmony Funeral Care handles at least one first-trimester cremation per month. Some families hold small religious ceremonies. "Parents are not only grieving a life lost, but also the future they had envisioned," said funeral director Harmony Tee.
For many, the ritual brings closure. Grace, a mother who suffered three miscarriages, said seeing her foetus with "tiny hands and legs" made the loss real. She named her lost babies Hope, Faith, and Peace.
Goh, now a mother of two, named her baby Jeremiah. She places his urn in a columbarium and takes her daughter to visit on his death anniversary. "I tell people I have three children, one in heaven, two on earth," she said.