Yes.
A good wake reminds you of the history of the person and his/her influence on our lives. It is also important to see a dead person to be able to say your goodbyes.
I don’t know how old the other children were at the time, but being around their parents while their parents were with them alone, to explain the death of the baby, would be an important thing for the family. Frankly, this applies to any member of the family, too, in the event that someone passes.
I’m not fond of the way we Americans sanitize death. I think it creates terrible fears about death - as if we didn’t have enough worries about that anyway!
Of course, I also admire the Jews ways of dealing with death. The body is immediately buried but they spend days at home (sometimes with mirrors covered) mourning the lost one. They then must put that death in perspective and move on. Beautiful.
Any birth is a much-anticipated event - every child is talked about, planned for, waited for. To not bring the child back to the home, and provide closure for the siblings, could have resulted in those children having problems with with the normal events of loss and losing a loved one later in life. I think the Santorums were very enlightened, and courageous, in the way they did this. It must have been excruciating for both parents. I give Santorum a lot of credit. Alan Colmes is a degenerate, who cares what he says...