Finding the positive in loss: stillbirth and its potential for parental empowerment

Abstract

This paper reports on PhD research that investigated parental experience of stillbirth.

Stillbirths: economic and psychosocial consequences

“…to sexual intercourse or engagement with health promoting activities, work, and social media. 26,32,42,59,60 Some parents campaigned for, and contributed to, health service improvements to help other families. Many parents changed the way they accessed health-care services, especially in subsequent pregnancies when fathers became more involved.…”

Women’s Experiences of Utilizing Religious and Spiritual Beliefs as Coping Resources After Miscarriage

“…The loss of a baby during pregnancy is a painful experience for many women (Murphy 2013;Bellhouse et al 2018). Perinatal loss is an umbrella term used to describe miscarriage, stillbirth (fetal death) and death of a live born baby in the first twenty-eight days after birth (Corcoran et al 2016;Sereshti et al 2016;Agwu Kalu et al 2018).…”

“…Although grief is a common experience, individuals respond in different ways to their losses because of religious beliefs, spiritual and cultural uniqueness of persons, and the ways by which grief is socially acknowledged (Shaw 2014;Allahdadian and Irajpour 2015). Grief reactions may include psychological, physical, social or emotional reaction to the loss (Mulvihill and Walsh 2013;Murphy 2013;Shaw 2014). Mothers and fathers grieve when they experience a perinatal loss but mothers tend to experience more intense grief than the fathers because of the physical and psychological relationship of mother to the baby in utero (Murphy 2013;Mulvihill and Walsh 2013;Shaw 2014;Carolan and Wright 2017).…”

“…Grief reactions may include psychological, physical, social or emotional reaction to the loss (Mulvihill and Walsh 2013;Murphy 2013;Shaw 2014). Mothers and fathers grieve when they experience a perinatal loss but mothers tend to experience more intense grief than the fathers because of the physical and psychological relationship of mother to the baby in utero (Murphy 2013;Mulvihill and Walsh 2013;Shaw 2014;Carolan and Wright 2017). In a qualitative study carried out in Ireland by (Mulvihill and Walsh 2013), it was found that women's husbands/partners appeared to get over the loss a lot quicker than the women.…”

“…In another qualitative study carried out by (Shaw 2014) in the UK with Pakistani Muslim women, it was reported that women felt distressed by their perceived failure to effectively protect the new life, as well as the failure of the healthcare professionals and society to recognise the personhood of their babies. In another qualitative study which was conducted in the USA, (Murphy 2013) found that some women's feelings after the loss of their babies was directly linked to societal ideals of womanhood, and perceived that they failed their babies by not understanding what was going on in their body.…”