After a pregnancy loss or infant death, it can be very frustrating to continue to receive promotional coupons and information for baby related items through your mail, or to receive baby or pregnancy related emails in your inbox, or to have milestone updates that you won’t reach with this pregnancy posted onto your social media.
How do you undo these things?
Direct Marketing Association is a mail preference service that helps you get the mail you want, and stop getting the mail you don’t. Here is their contact information:
- Direct Marketing Association, Inc. 1615 L Street Washington, DC 20036
- 212-768-7277, ext. 1888
I have called them several times, and have sent them several emails using their contact form. I finally reached them, by asking for an operator.
Then, I registered, so that I could view the full listing of associated businesses. They are in four categories:
- catalogs
- magazine offers
- other mail offers
- credit offers (separate website)
I found nothing helpful under “other mail” which was where I went first. Then I went through the catalog and magazine listings. I found “American Baby”, “Birthday Keepsakes”, “Children’s Wear Digest”, “Early Childhood Manufacturer’s Direct”, and “Family Circle”. These are the only companies listed with Direct Marketing Association (DMA). Other businesses, formula manufacturers, diaper companies, and cord blood banking companies are not currently listed.
If you would like to unsubscribe from any of those that are listed, you can register your account with DMA here.
When you register at websites or when you list for freebies, you are considered to be a customer, and they will send you any coupons or promotions they want. That means, going back to each website and unregistering (some moms wondered if somehow midwives or doctors sell personal information to product manufacturers. Through HIPAA, they can’t do this).
So, ultimately, this leaves loss moms with three options:
- Continue to get the mail for the baby we are no longer pregnant with. Some moms have the dads check the mail. Some moms rip and tear apart the coupons and ads as a time to release anger and frustration at not being pregnant anymore. Alternatively, some moms save some of the advertisements as something else that belongs to the baby.
- Contact DMA, but this is largely ineffective.
- Keep documentation of each baby registration, so that they can go back to each website to unsubscribe. For subsequent pregnancies, some mothers only register for sites with the quickest and simplest unsubscribing processes.
- If you are in Europe, your Baby Mailing Preference Service can be helpful.
What do you do when you receive baby mail?
I have had to deal with this for nearly five long years now due to having to buy and wear maternity clothes because of a condition that causes my stomach to swell as big as 48″. Due to my having to purchase most of my clothing at maternity stores, I receive ‘baby mail’. It used to kill me inside because it would remind me of my two youngest children who have been missing from my life since 1998 and it would also serve to remind me that, although I look pregnant, I was gutted and castrated without my consent and forever lost the abiltiy to get pregnant and give birth to another baby. I tried everything in the world to stop the ‘baby mail’ but to no avail. Finally, I decided to use my hurt and loss (and baby mail) to bless mothers who could use the coupons, samples, etc. I was receiving. I would put these things in an envelope (if coupons) and/or in my car (if samples) and I would give them to mothers with young children who came across my path at the grocery store, drug store, mall, etc. or I would give them to pregnant women I would see at these same places. I figured that at least it was a way of making something good come out of something bad… Just an idea…