Why is AZ Herentals making its own tiny caskets for stillborn babies by hand?
The general hospital in the Kempen town of Herentals now hand-builds the small caskets used for stillborn children, reframing an anonymous supply item as an act of care meant to give grieving parents "houvast" — something to hold onto.
In 30 seconds
- AZ Herentals, the general hospital in the Kempen town of Herentals, now hand-makes the small caskets used for stillborn children, according to VRT NWS.
- Staff describe the aim as offering parents "houvast in het rouwproces" — a tangible steadying point in mourning.
- The initiative fits a decade-long shift in Flemish maternity care: butterfly rooms (vlinderkamers), cooled cots and memory-making are now common.
- Since a 2019 reform, Belgian parents can optionally register a stillborn child by name from roughly 140 days of pregnancy, via the gemeente/commune; rules are on belgium.be and via FOD Justitie.
AZ Herentals is the general hospital (Algemeen Ziekenhuis) in Herentals, a town in the Kempen region of Antwerp province, Flanders. According to VRT NWS, its staff now hand-make the small caskets used for stillborn children rather than ordering them from an external supplier, framing the change as a way to give bereaved parents "houvast" (something to hold onto) in mourning. The story sits within Belgium's wider system of perinatal-loss care, which involves hospital "vlinderkamers" (butterfly rooms), cooled cots, Flemish support organisations such as Berrefonds and Met Lege Handen, and the federal civil-status framework (FOD Justitie / belgium.be) that since 2019 lets parents register a stillborn child by name.
Background
Flemish hospitals spent the past decade professionalising perinatal-bereavement care — introducing butterfly rooms, cooled cots, memory boxes and standard remembrance practices — after an earlier era that tended to move grieving parents on quickly. In parallel, a 2019 reform of Belgium's federal civil-status rules lowered the threshold for optionally registering a stillborn child (to around 140 days of pregnancy) and allowed parents to give the child a first name, a change long sought by bereaved-parent advocates.
What to do
Parents in Belgium facing stillbirth can ask their maternity team directly about a butterfly room, time with the baby, a cooled cot, prints and photographs, and, where available, a farewell casket. A stillborn child can, from around 140 days of pregnancy, be optionally registered by name at the gemeente (Flanders) or commune (Brussels/Wallonia) — check current rules on belgium.be and with FOD Justitie. In Flanders, Berrefonds and Met Lege Handen offer peer support; francophone families should ask the hospital's social service to find help in their language.
Impact
Regional — Directly relevant in Flanders, and specifically the Kempen, where AZ Herentals serves the wider Herentals catchment. It also fits a Flanders-wide trend in maternity wards; francophone Belgium has comparable hospital care but a different, more scattered support-organisation landscape.
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- 9 Aug 2026
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This story was assembled from verified evidence, with its sources and reasoning recorded as it was written.