#10 Henry’s Story, Supporting Bereaved Dads and Pinecones with Chris Binnie

We’ve reached Episode 10! This week, I chat with Chris Binnie about his son Henry, a dad’s perspective on loss, grief and pregnancy after loss and how health care professionals can support Dads better.

Chris has so many words of wisdom particularly around things such as memory-making and society’s expectations of how men “should” grieve. While Chris is obviously talking from the perspective of a male parent, I’m sure some of what he says will also resonate with mums in a same-sex relationship who weren’t the parent carrying their baby.

If you have a friend who is a midwife or doctor who comes across bereaved parents, I’d love it if you could share this episode with them. It definitely opened my eyes and made me think about things differently.

In the interview we talk about:

• Chris’s experience of losing his first child, his son, Henry. (7:47)
• How midwives and other professionals can better support dads after loss and the importance of making memories vs being given memories. (20:57)
• Bottling up grief and how society’s expectations can affect how men grieve. (32:56)
• Chris’s experience of pregnancy after loss and the stress of a complicated pregnancy, premature twins and parenting living babies. (41:35)
• Pinecones, Beyond Bea and why he chose to speak out about his experiences of baby loss. (54:05)

You can find Chris on Instagram @pine_cones_and_study_days – he’d love to hear from other dads who’ve been affected by baby loss.

Find out more about Beyond Bea at https://www.beyondbea.co.uk/. The charity is also on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I’d also recommend listening to Episode 6 which is an interview with Beyond Bea’s founder, Steph Wild.

If you enjoy the podcast, I’d really appreciate it if you could leave a review on your podcast app. You can connect with me on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/footprintsonourhearts/) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/skyesfootprints) or email alison@footprintsonourhearts.com.