Banff-Airdrie Conservative MP Blake Richards put forward a private member’s motion last week aimed at providing better financial support to parents after the death of an infant.
Currently, parents forfeit parental benefits if a child dies before 12 months of age.
Richards is seeking financial reprieve for families following the loss of a child – possibly through a bereavement leave or a minimum six weeks paid parental leave.
“There’s an opportunity to create some awareness and to pressure the government to make these changes,” said Richards, adding that there are more families than one would think affected by this “bureaucratic oversight.”
Richards is hopeful that he will be called in through order of precedence to debate the issue in the House of Commons sometime in 2017. He also wants a parliamentary committee to consult with families who have been affected by the death of an infant and grief counsellors to better inform recommendations for financial reprieve.
He has been working closely with Airdrie resident Sarah Cormier, who lost her daughter, Quinn, at four months and 10 days of age on Dec. 28, 2014 to “undetermined causes” (traditionally known as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS).
“On Jan. 4, 2015, my husband and I found ourselves at Service Canada to be told that we owed back pay for the week since her death and for the child tax credit,” said Cormier, who remembers being “mad and shocked.”
Realizing that she was not alone, Cormier rallied together others who had undergone similar experiences and began to work with Richards on the motion that they are hoping will be taken seriously by Ottawa.
“I started talking to Blake Richards about this and he’s been working with us since May of 2015,” said Cormier, who started up Quinn’s Legacy Society – a charity that supports families who have suffered the loss of an infant.
The annual Quinn’s Legacy Run, held on Aug. 20 each year (Quinn’s birthday), has raised $50,000 in the two years since its inception for the Calgary SIDS Society.
“We are so honoured,” said Cormier, adding that she and her husband started the charity in their daughter’s honour because “we had to aspire to something to survive the loss.”
It’s a motion that hits close to home for Cochranite Jennifer Snelgrove.
The mother of four – seven-year-old Joshua and three-year-old Brennan – also holds the memory of two lost sons, Zachary (who died at three months in 2009) and Logen (who died at one month in 2012).
“I believe a private bill passed to allow parents more time to work through their grief would be a positive win for parents and guardians who have had to deal with such a traumatic loss,” said Snelgrove, who grew up in Cochrane and returned to live here one year ago.
Both her infant sons suffered from what the medical community believes was some form of primordial dwarfism which is a type of dwarfism that “results in a smaller body size in all stages of life beginning before birth” although there was never an official diagnosis.
Zachary was born one day before his due date weighing only 2.2 pounds. Logen was born at 37 weeks gestation at 1.14 pounds – 36 weeks is considered full term.
“With Zachary we knew around 30 weeks – which was devastating,” said Jennifer, adding that with Logen they knew around 12 weeks gestation – no less devastating but the earlier diagnosis provided her and her husband more time to prepare.
Both infants shared similar characteristics such as skeletal deformations, clubbed feet, fingers that couldn’t extend and were only 10 and 11 inches long at birth (most infants are 17 to 22 inches).
With Zachary, Jennifer is still uncertain of what exactly transpired when she set her three-month-old, swaddled infant down in his bassinet at the Alberta Children’s Hospital to meet her husband in the downstairs lobby to retrieve a clean set of clothes, only to return to her infant son undressed, unattended and not breathing.
“In my honest opinion, if things were handled differently there’s a chance he could be with us today,” said Jennifer.
She said that had there been some type of parental leave following the loss of Zachary, perhaps she and her husband, Austin, would have been able to take the necessary time to grieve and heal. Finances dictated they both return to work almost directly following their children’s deaths.
“The emotional, mental and physical toll of saying goodbye to a child is often shadowed in the early days or weeks or months of loss,” said Jennifer.
“The ability to spend time dealing with our grief, spending time seeking help and working through our new ‘normals’ without worrying about the financial pressure of having to be thrust back into the work place is a wonderful opportunity for parents.”
Hazel Hannivan, a 13-year Cochrane resident, looks back to her family’s dark time in 2009 – following the sudden death of a son she had to deliver at 32 weeks gestation.
Hannivan, who has a 13-year-old son and six-year-old daughter, said she was only able to take a week off work and is very supportive of a motion that would help others.
“We were not prepared for the loss. We had the nursery set up and everything,” said Hannivan, emphasizing that six weeks would have been a huge benefit to her own mental and emotional well-being at that time.
Christina Friesen is a mother and Cochrane resident of nine years who well remembers her own situation 10 years ago.
Friesen contracted cytomegalovirus during her pregnancy, which resulted in having to deliver her stillborn daughter, Violet, at five months gestation.
Friesen, who is the mother of a nine-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son, said she thinks the supports proposed in Richards’ motion are long overdue.
“It’s a devastating time for a family. There needs to be something, some kind of financial assistance,” she said.
Quick facts
• SIDS is the No. 1 cause of death in babies under the age of one. • SIDS or undetermined deaths cannot be predicted or prevented. • On the day an infant (younger than 12 months) dies, EI parental benefits stop being paid to the parent.
