Stillbirth - transitions and rituals when birth brings death: Data from a danish national cohort seen through an anthropological lens.

Danish parents engage to a very high degree in contact with their dead baby. The analysis points out that 'Time' and 'Others' are needed to create a socially comprehensible status for parents and child when birth brings death. In liminal space during the transition, healthcare professionals act as ritual experts, supporting parents and their relatives to ascribe social status to the dead body of the child through ritualised acts. Instead of only thinking of this period as 'memory-making', we suggest regarding it as a time of ontological clarification as well.