This is a “spoiler” list of books, movies, and other media which reference pregnancy & infant loss.
This is not to be mistaken for our list of actual support books and resources for pregnancy and infant loss.
Having this list can be valuable to show that Hollywood and others in fact do address loss, it can help us determine which ways loss is demonstrated respectfully and which ways it is demonstrated offensively, and it can help to shield us if we would like to be prevented from seeing a depiction of pregnancy/infant loss while enjoying a book or movie. A stillbirthday mother also suggested viewing the database “Does the Dog Die?”
Please leave comments below, to add to the list (including a link might be helpful too, so we can determine which ones, if there is more than one movie with the same title), and please tell us which titles reference loss respectfully, and which ones reference loss offensively.
Books
- The Help
- Handle with Care
- The Prodigal Summer
- Where the Sidewalk Ends (“Dreadful” poem)
- Big Love (secondary infertility)
- What Alice Forgot
Movies
- Return to Zero (stillbirthday is in the end credits, just above NILMDTS!)
- This is Our Time (by the makers of Fireproof and Courageous)
- Marley and Me
- Away We Go
- A Walk in the Clouds
- Lorenzo’s Oil (childhood diagnosis)
- Battle in Seattle
- Then She Found Me (adoption)
- Seven Pounds
- The Time Traveler’s Wife
- The Hand that Rocks the Cradle
- Maybe Baby
- Secret Window
- Karate Kid
- Benjamin Button
- Finding Nemo (Disney/Pixar) (depicts secondary/additional trauma)
- Up (Disney/Pixar)
- Astro Boy
- Couple’s Retreat
- Revolutionary Road
- Facing the Giants (difficulty TTC, no loss)
- Courageous
- The Help
- What to Expect When You’re Expecting
- Cider House Rules (incest, elective abortion, cremation, orphanage)
- The Way
Television
- The Big C
- Private Practice, season 5 finale
- Call the Midwife (includes crisis births and infant death)
- Season 2, Episode 6 of The Fosters
About Children’s Loss of Parents
- All Dogs Go To Heaven
- Angels in the Outfield
- Cinderella
- Sword in the Stone
- Because of Windixie
The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M Auel, there is a woman they meet a few months after she has a stillborth, and then the main character goes through a very rough (what I would consider a second trimester) miscarriage. They deal with it all very well, but it is hard to read.
Rose Madder by Steven King. The beginning of the book; the main character has a early miscarriage after her husband physically abuses her. There are more references to the loss throughout the book but the beginning is the most vivid.
Sing You Home by Jodi Piccoult. The main characters deal with the aftermath of a stillbirth and the difficulty of TTC with fertility treatments.
“The Other Woman” with Nathalie Portman and Lisa Kudrow. The main character loses a baby to SIDS a few days postpartum, and her close friend is experiencing miscarriage. The dynamic between them deals with insensitivities regarding infant loss and miscarriage.
Side Effects makes mention of a loss. The main main character is named Emily, she later on in the movie says she wanted to give her husband a daughter but “she didnt want to stay inside such a sad person” or something like that.
Toni Morrison, A Mercy.
Butterfly Effect movie…… at the end the main character goes back in time one final time and strangles himself in the womb so he is stillborn.
There is a few episodes in Secret Life of The American Teenager and the movie Gravity has a few references.
Mmm, sing you home is beautiful but heart wrenching… Also Disney/Pixar’s Up gets me every time!
Big Hero 6!
“A Smile Like Yours” with Greg Kinnear and Lauren Holly depicts struggles with infertility.
Emergency Room (ER), TV Series, S10E21
Stillbirth.
Happened to browse through TV channels today, randomly came across it, now crying my heart out… 🙁
The Fosters, in season 2 (television show). Baby lost to early onset preeclampsia. Just got hit with that… :'(