PRESIDENTIAL PROCLAMATION
OCTOBER
Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month
Each year, approximately a million pregnancies in the U.S. end in miscarriage,
stillbirth or the death of the newborn child. National observance of Pregnancy
and Infant Loss Awareness Month offers us the opportunity to increase our
understanding of the great tragedy involved in the deaths of unborn and newborn
babies. It also enables us to consider how, as individuals and communities, we
can meet the needs of bereaved parents and family members on work to prevent
causes of these problems.
Health care professionals recognize that trends of recent years, such as smaller
family size and postponement of childbearing, adds another dimension of
poignancy to the grief of parents who have lost infants. More than 700 local,
national and international support groups are supplying programs and strategies
designed to help parents cope with their loss. Parents who have suffered their
own losses, health care professionals and specially trained hospital staff
members are helping newly bereaved parents deal constructively with loss...
The Congress, by Senate Joint Resolution 314, has designated the month of
October, as "Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month" and authorized and
requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this month.
NOW, THEREFORE, I RONALD REAGAN, President of the United States of America, do
hereby proclaim the month of October as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness
Month. I call upon the people of the United States to observe this month with
appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-fifth day of October
in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-eight and of the
Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirteenth.
Ronald Reagan
Former President
United States of America
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