Most of the time, giving birth is a formality. However, it can take on the greatest complexity when it is death, and not life which is the result. Miscarriages, medical terminations of a pregnancy, embryonic destructions, perinatal mortalities… these babies born prematurely don’t even have the chance to be properly recognised as a part of this world, leaving their parents to solitude, grief and even a sense of guilt. Isn’t it natural that the parents, even if it is painful for them, want to see their child, to name him, to register his existence ? That they need to follow the rituals of bereavement and record the child in the family history ?
Doctors, midwives, anthropologists, philosophers, and psychoanalysts ask themselves what their role is when faced with this kind of sudden death, which has the capacity to affect so intensely other lives : how, they ask, can we help these patients along the road of their bereavement ?

Conference Gypsy I, le 13 décembre 1996, with Marilia Aisenstein, Francine Caumel-Dauphin, Didier David, Geneviève Delaisi, Maryse Dumoulin, Muriel Flis-Trèves, René Frydman,Camille Laurens, Catherine Le Grand-Sébille, Jean-Philippe Legros, François Olivennes, Ginette Raimbault, Catherine Rongières-Bertrand, François Roussel, Michel Soulé, Anne-Sylvie Valat, Michèle Vial-Courmont, Françoise Zonabend.