Baby funeral: rituals and customs, features, expert advice

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

Sad as it may seem, but human life sometimes ends as soon as it begins, and when such grief befalls a family, parents do not always know how to organize a baby's funeral in accordance with legal norms and religious traditions. In the proposed article, we will try to highlight this issue, while wishing with all our heart that the information contained in it is useful to as few readers as possible.

A fully formed person or still a fetus?

First of all, it is necessary to clarify such an important legal detail: according to existing legislation, a stillborn child is considered a fetus if death occurs before the 197th day of its intrauterine development.

This fully applies to premature babies who died immediately after birth, if the mother's gestational age was less than 28 weeks. In both cases, all care for the funeral of the baby falls on the medical institution, within the walls of which the misfortune occurred.

Some more important legal requirements

As for babies,who died in the later period of pregnancy or were born alive, but then died in the maternity hospital, then their burial is performed according to the same rules as in the case of any other citizen of Russia. The law provides for the issuance of cash benefits to parents for the funeral of an infant.

It is considered appropriate to bury the body of a newborn no later than two days after the mandatory autopsy in such cases. The law provides that if a mother cannot yet be discharged from the maternity hospital due to her he alth, or due to psychological stress is not able to take care of the funeral, then this right is granted to her relatives. Without her participation, they can take the body of the child and organize all the mourning events themselves. They are issued a death certificate, which must then be submitted to the registry office to complete all subsequent legal formalities.

In the same cases, when misfortune befalls women who have no one to take care of the deceased child, or they want to do it themselves, the law requires the administration of the medical institution to ensure the storage of the body until the mother is discharged and after that provide her with the necessary for receiving benefits document.

The legislation also provides for another scenario, when neither the parents nor the relatives of a child who died in the first days of his life do not want to deal with his burial. According to available data, this happens, and by no means rarely. The funeral of the baby then should be de alt withmedical institution. The body may be buried in a common grave or cremated. In this case, the urn with the ashes is kept for a year, and if it remains unclaimed, it is subject to burial in a common grave.

What awaits the souls of babies beyond the threshold of death?

The purely legal side of the issue related to the death of children was considered above, but nowadays, when a significant part of society has again turned to religious traditions, it is necessary to touch on this important aspect.

Unfortunately, in the Holy Scriptures, on the basis of which the teaching of the Orthodox Church is built, grief-stricken parents will hardly find consolation. The fact is that the words of Jesus Christ, quoted in the 3rd chapter of the Gospel of John, testify that baptism - “birth of water and the Spirit” - is an indispensable condition for entering the Kingdom of Heaven.

Children who died in their mother's womb or in the first days of life, for obvious reasons, remained unbaptized, and therefore deprived of the opportunity to inherit eternal life. But at the same time, their souls, not yet burdened with sins, cannot be cast into fiery hell.

Therefore, according to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, their lot - until the Last Judgment and the general resurrection from the dead - to be in some intermediate state. Accordingly, the funeral of babies (a photo of this sad scene is given in the article) is performed without a funeral service. In addition, it is not customary to arrange a commemoration for them in the same way as is done in the event of the death of baptized people.

Death of mother and child

Despite the fact that by the time a child is born, a woman is trying to be protected from negative circumstances as much as possible, statistics show that sometimes this most important moment of her life turns into a tragedy. Unfortunately, maternal mortality during childbirth is as common as infant mortality, especially in countries with poor he alth care.

If the misfortune did happen, then the mother and child are buried together. At the same time, a baptized woman is buried in accordance with all the rules of the church, and her child is buried not buried. According to the Orthodox tradition, such a burial can make it easier for his soul to stay in the afterlife, where it will be in anticipation of the Last Judgment and the resurrection from the dead.

Burial of Baptized Children

However, it often happens that, for one reason or another, children who have lived after birth for some time and managed to be baptized die. Their burial is carried out in full accordance with Christian custom, since as a result of the sacrament they have become full-fledged members of Christ's Church. In this case, the soul of the child after the funeral will need funeral rites performed on the third, ninth and fortieth day.

Fruits of folk fantasy

In passing, we note that over the centuries, folk fantasy has generated a lot of extremely ridiculous beliefs related to death and funeralsnewborn babies. Some of them came to the modern world from ancient pagan times, while others represent a distortion of the current Orthodox traditions, or are simply a manifestation of dark superstition. These, for example, include the belief of some people that dead children should be buried at night, because otherwise one of the relatives may become seriously ill.

Another example of such nonsense is the deeply anti-Christian belief that the body of an unbaptized infant placed in the coffin of a deceased adult will help him escape hellish torments and enter the Kingdom of God. Such absurdity has never been uttered from the pulpit of the church and is strongly condemned in the circle of the clergy.

Finally, the belief of some people that the unbaptized children who left this world turn into flowers, butterflies, good fairies, and even into various fairy-tale evil spirits, can be called completely undisguised paganism. As a poetic metaphor, this sounds perfectly acceptable, but taking such statements literally is clearly archaic these days.

Attempts at posthumous infant baptism

The Orthodox Church unequivocally condemns this kind of fabrication. Equally criticized are attempts to christen an already deceased child in a church or at home, tempting the priest with a generous reward. Absolutely unacceptable are also all sorts of folk ways to help an unbaptized child's soul enter the gates of paradise. Among them, in addition to variousconspiracies, include manipulations with pectoral crosses practiced during the funeral of three children, divination over eggs painted in a special way, etc.

Superstitions masquerading as funeral signs

The death of a baby, as well as any other person, is a strong psychological blow for his family. It dulls their ability to think critically, which creates fertile ground for the perception of all sorts of superstitions that the Orthodox Church is struggling with.

In particular, one can recall such prejudices as the prohibition to leave the body of the deceased unattended, the requirement to hang all the mirrors in the house, the need to hide away the photographs of relatives in the room (so as not to damage them), etc. And recommendations to turn upside down those pieces of furniture on which the coffin stood are completely absurd.

At the end of the article, I would like to remind you that over time, church tradition and existing legislation have established quite certain funeral norms (a photo of these mourning rituals is given in the article), and they should be followed in all cases.