Assessment of guidelines for good psychosocial practice for parents who have lost an infant through perinatal or postnatal death

Abstract

Recently, guidelines for good psychosocial practice for parents who have lost a child at an obstetric or neonatal ward have been criticised. Members of a national association for parents who had lost an infant (N = 566) reported their acute bereavement behavior and rituals and filled in standardized questionnaires for degree of traumatization, symptomatology, and grief. The age of the child was not associated with any measure of distress. Seeing the dead child and having an open coffin were associated with reduced distress, while specific mementoes and the number of mementoes were associated with augmented distress. The gender of the lost and the gender of an eventual new child were also associated with specific changes in distress depending on the age of the deceased child.

Psychological Consequences of Pregnancy Loss and Infant Death in a Sample of Bereaved Parents

“…Wright (2011) outlines the problems with using different terms for pregnancy loss and gives definitions of different types of pregnancy loss (fetal death, stillbirth, perinatal loss, spontaneous abortion, early miscarriage, and early pregnancy loss) described in research studies over the years. Elklit and Gudmundsdóttir (2006) also underline the range of terms used to describe both pregnancy loss and infant death. One of the most commonly reported type of infant death is the sudden and unexpected death of an infant or toddler, (SIDS) which extends from 2 weeks to 2 years of age and whereby the death cannot be determined by a postmortem examination.…”

“…One of the most commonly reported type of infant death is the sudden and unexpected death of an infant or toddler, (SIDS) which extends from 2 weeks to 2 years of age and whereby the death cannot be determined by a postmortem examination. According to Elklit and Gudmundsdóttir (2006), perinatal mortality is described as death from gestation weeks 28-42 or during birth. Neonatal mortality can refer to death in the first 4 weeks of life or when an infant does not show any sign of life in the womb and is born after gestation week 20.…”

“…Finally, stillbirths are instances when the infant dies when it is born and can occur prematurely or at full term (Elklit & Gudmundsdóttir, 2006). With the varying terms used across different research studies, there is a heightened risk to the validity of these studies, as the same terms may be applied to describe the same types of loss but in different ways (Wright, 2011).…”

“…Many factors have been investigated in determining the severity of the traumatization process for bereaved parents following infant death, and different practices have been examined when working with parents in the aftermath of loss. Elklit and Gudmundsdóttir (2006) investigated if clinical practices following perinatal and postnatal infant death were helpful or detrimental for parental psychological well-being. The results of this study revealed no significant differences in psychological distress between types of losses (perinatal or postnatal), but for those parents who lost their child through postnatal death, a reduction in levels of distress was associated with the amount of time spent with their child.…”

Parental relationship satisfaction after the death of a child

“…There is a lack of research evidence on the association between parental age and relationship satisfaction after a child's death. However, it has been reported that older parents tend to have stronger grief reactions than younger parents (28,31).…”