Short-Term Grief after an Elective Abortion

Existential experiences and needs related to induced abortion in a group of Swedish women: a quantitative investigation

“…These findings supported earlier studies, which indicate that post-abortion adjustment is more difficult for women who experience the pregnancy as meaningful, or who feel ambivalent about the decision [4,42]. It also adds knowledge to the field concerning experiences that women in such a predicament might face, pointing out that existential questions may be an important factor for women's post abortion adjustment and psychological recovery [12,13].…”

“…This inbuilt paradox can account for the diverse emotional reactions both quantitative and qualitative studies have found in abortion patients -such as pride, gratitude and relief as well as grief, shame, guilt and regret [3,[8][9][10][11][12][13]. Ambivalence is not uncommon in women requesting abortion [10,14] and women often simultaneously endorse reasons for both terminating and continuing the pregnancy [15].…”

“…In cases where women hold dehumanised images of the foetus, it makes little sense to speak about abortion in terms of a loss. However, experiences of loss and short-term grief responses do exist among women's reaction to abortion [10,13,18].…”

Depression among Nigerian women following pregnancy loss

“…These include the gestational age and gender of the fetus, the level of support given by a woman's partner, social support, history of mental health problems, a more neurotic personality prior to the loss, and childlessness [4,5]. Most studies of women's experiences of pregnancy loss have been conducted in high-income countries [6][7][8]. However, women in Africa and other low-income countries experience a higher incidence of pregnancy loss compared with women in high-income countries.…”

The Language of Loss When a Baby Dies Prior to Birth: Cocreating Human Experience

“…One wonders, does this mean that professionals think that women do not experience loss when a choice is made to have an abortion? There is actually literature on the experience of loss for women who decide to have an abortion (Kolker & Burke, 1993;Williams, 2001).In order to distinguish between the spontaneous and elective loss ofan infant, the terms abortion and missed abortion are being replaced with terms such as first or second trimester intrauterine fetal death (Pridjian & Moawad, 1989), or delayed or silent miscarriage (Hutchon, 1998). Regardless of the move to sensitize language, Hutchon (1998) found that in two majorjournals in the United States the term abortion continued to be used up to six times more than other Englishjournals.…”