Parental adjustment to intrapartum and delivery room loss. The role of a hospital-based support program

Abstract

Perinatal loss prompts a unique bereavement for parents and their families that is unlike the mourning process experienced at the death of other loved ones. The Support Center For Perinatal and Childhood Death has developed a comprehensive program to provide support, counseling, and information to families who experience miscarriage, stillbirth, fetal anomalies, and therapeutic abortion for genetic or congenital abnormalities. The impact of perinatal loss is felt not only in the real loss of the wished-for child but also in the loss of self-esteem, the role of parent, and the loss of confidence in the ability to produce a healthy child. The emotional experience of miscarriage or stillbirth creates an atmosphere of despair and confusion for families anticipating a joyous event. The presence of a support counselor and medical caregivers at this time can help parents to navigate the crisis surrounding the loss in ways that promote a healthy grieving process and avert pathologic adaptations. Prenatal, intrapartum, and postpartum counseling opportunities are afforded to families as the situation and parental needs dictate. Services also are extended to other family members, with particular attention to surviving siblings who might be vulnerable to the consequences of unresolved or unacknowledged grief. Grief is experienced as a long-term process, which frequently emerges fully after discharge from the hospital and lasts well beyond the interest and stamina of supportive family members and friends. Support groups, which meet the specific needs of families who experience perinatal loss, contemplate subsequent pregnancy, or face the prenatal decision to terminate a genetically or congenitally compromised pregnancy, have been run successfully for a period of several years. Beyond the experience of intrapartum loss in the delivery room, the experience comes full circle for families who enter the delivery room again with a subsequent child. The expressed need for support in acknowledging the rekindled memories of prior loss at this poignant time are matched only by parents' needs to find reassuring ways of differentiating healthy newborns from the memory of those who died. It is often at the time of the subsequent birth that the memory of the lost child can take its proper place in the family. Stein expresses the essence of grief work and resolve: Mourning is not just feeling sad. It is the specific psychological process by which human beings become able to give up some of the feelings they have invested in a person who no longer exists, and extend their love to the living. Mourning is hard, emotional work.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)