Episode 27 · 15 October 2026 · 43 min
Baby Loss
with Tanya Wilkinson, Grief coach and host of Death on the Daily
What do you actually say to someone whose baby has died, when nothing you say can make it better?
Baby Loss Awareness Week feels like the right time for an episode dedicated to it. Grief coach Tanya Wilkinson talks about the death of her daughter Ngākau Raiona, who died following a termination for medical reasons at 21 weeks, the grief Olympics and why we feel the need to rank one loss against another, and the silence surrounding termination for medical reasons — which Tanya describes as a taboo on a taboo.
We also talk about something so many of us struggle with: what do you actually say to someone who has lost a baby, and how do you show up for them when nothing you say or do can possibly make it better?
Core themes explored
- The grief Olympics: why we create hierarchies of loss
- The importance of saying a baby's name
- Termination for medical reasons: the taboo on a taboo
- What to actually say — and do — when someone has lost a baby
Related conversations
Episode 26
NICU
The safest and most dangerous place in the whole world — and what you say to someone who's there.
Episode 25
Sex and what we want
Why is it so much harder to ask for what we want in bed than anywhere else in our lives?