Mom Dances With Stillborn Baby In Viral Video Claiming It's A 'Coping Mechanism'
Everyone grieves differently.
tykcartoon, brazzo, Fly View Productions | Canva A viral TikTok video is drawing a lot of attention — and criticism — for the way a new mother handled the loss of her newborn daughter.
Lexie, 21, had been looking forward to posting a video with her newborn after spending 10 hours in labor, but instead of experiencing the joy of welcoming a child into the world, Lexie experienced the worst pain imaginable.
After losing her daughter in a stillbirth, Lexie continued to post clips of her dancing while holding the baby.
“Waiting 8 months just for you to come out with no heartbeat,” she captioned the first video.
The grieving mom received backlash for dancing with her stillborn baby.
Lexie added that it was “dark humor at its finest” and urged people to let her “cope in peace.”
Despite posting the video as a way to cope with the grief, according to Lexie, many people flooded her comments with criticism and hate, leading her to take the videos down. People began expressing their horror that she had posted the video, from the filter she’d used, the music choice, and that she had even posted the video of her stillborn baby.
In another clip that was taken down, Lexie explained that she is only 21 years old and believes that she should be able to cope in her own way.
“It’s not a joke,” she added. “It’s my coping mechanism.”
Lexie revealed that she wants to feel comfortable looking at and talking to her baby, despite the fact that her daughter is technically not with her.
In a YouTube video, Lexie explained further her decision to post multiple TikTok videos with her stillborn daughter.
“The only time I could get [her] to kick was when I was up making TikTok dances,” Lexie explained about her pregnancy. “So I said ‘You know what, I’m going to show my baby off to the world.’”
Lexie continued by saying that after she had made the videos with her daughter, she felt a sense of peace wash over her.
“To this day I don’t feel bad about it,” Lexie said. “I still watch those videos every single day. People don’t understand that it was never meant to be a joke, it was never meant to be disrespectful. It was simply my way of fulfilling the wishes that I had with my daughter,” she added.
Humor and laughter can actually help people cope with difficult losses.
In fact, a 2022 literature review found that bereavement humor is actually quite common, with research suggesting that humor is "a technique that allowed bereaved people to temporarily avoid their grief and help them with the longer-term management of their grief."
However, this type of criticism isn’t something new, and has even happened to Chrissy Teigen after she shared photos she’d taken at the hospital during her own pregnancy loss in September 2020. In a letter for Medium, Teigen wrote about the traumatic experience, explaining why she chose to document the heartbreaking birth.
“I had asked my mom and John to take pictures, no matter how uncomfortable it was,” she wrote. “I explained to a very hesitant John that I needed them, and that I did NOT want to have to ever ask. That he just had to do it. He hated it. I could tell. It didn’t make sense to him at the time.”
“I lived it, I chose to do it, and more than anything, these photos aren’t for anyone but the people who have lived this or are curious enough to wonder what something like this is like,” Teigen continued. “These photos are only for the people who need them. The thoughts of others do not matter to me.”
It seems the same could be said for Lexie, who only wanted those videos as a way to remember and commemorate the life she could have had with her daughter.
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Follow her on Instagram.