Mein Sternenkind

Little soul I’ll let you go,
because I know we will see each other again.
The funeral services

The funeral services are regulated by the cantons and communes; therefore, only generally valid information can be given here.

For specific details, the information in the respective commune of residence is decisive. Information is available from the communal administration.

As a matter of principle, every child who is subject to registration in accordance with Art. 9 of the Civil Status Ordinance, is entitled to all available burial facilities, like an elderly deceased person (burial at a communal cemetery or a cremation).

After a cremation, the urn can be buried in a cemetery or in a Friedwald (forest cemetery) or taken home and placed in an individual, private place.

Dealing with children who are not subject to registration or funeral duties is not regulated by law, and neither rights nor duties are specified.

These children are not legally entitled to a funeral. In many Swiss communes, special burial grounds or community graves for early-deceased children have been created in recent years. Increasingly, many communities that do not have such a burial ground offer individual solutions to the affected families, so that they can also place a deceased child who is not subject to registration in their own grave or in the common grave.

Some clinics organize collective burials for children who are not subject to registration. In case of an early miscarriage, many parents choose an individual place in nature. If parents wish to organize a cremation, this is also possible for children who are not subject to registration.

After the cremation of very young children, there is hardly any ash. This is to be considered if parents would like to scatter the ashes in nature.