As prepared for delivery.
Mayor Deutsch and members of the Dunwoody City Council, we appreciate the opportunity to be here today.
Candidly, we wish it were for another reason and that Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month didn’t have to exist.
But, it does, and it is important to pause and designate the month.
It’s hard to believe that there were 888 infant deaths in 2018 — not nationally, just in Georgia.
Nationally, the number is more than 21,400 in 2018. That’s more than 58 infants lost per day. It’s almost hard to believe and that a tragedy like this goes mostly unnoticed.
I don’t know that I would have believed it until my wife, Ruth, and I lost our son three years ago. Now that we know it, we still struggle to understand it.
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan declared October as “Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month.” The idea is to honor the unique grief of bereaved parents, and it is unique grief.
There is no experience like losing a child — it is one that goes with you everywhere. Chances are, most people know someone who has experienced such a loss. They may not talk about it often or ever, but I can assure you, it weighs heavily on their mind.
To fix a problem, we must first recognize it — and resolutions like this go a long way to help shine a light on an issue that still plagues so many locally and nationally.
Your action today is much appreciated. Let’s hope this is a month we can soon relegate to the history books and help solve the tragedy of infant loss.