The psychological support for women who underwent a stillbirth during their pregnancy: the quality of midwifery care

Abstract

Purpose: This review aims to investigate the role of midwifery care in perinatal death. Specifically, it aims to investigate the type and implications in the clinical practice of psychological and psychiatric support interventions for women/couples.

Methods: A scoping review was conducted following the PRISMA methodology. For this purpose, the following databases were queried: PubMed, APA PsycInfo, CINAHL Plus with Full Text, and ERIC, considering only studies published in the 2002-2022 time frame.

Results: 14 studies were found to be eligible by the literature review. These researches were divided into 3 macro-topics representing the most crucial factors in influencing the quality of care: the healthcare setting, the experience and training of caregivers, and the experience of parents.

Discussion: The healthcare figure who experiences such a tragic event most closely is the midwife. The health and geographic context in which care is provided - understood to be low-medium-high resources - have a fundamental impact on the quality of midwifery care and caregiver satisfaction. The training was found to be incomplete, and midwives' experiences revealed how they felt unprepared. Parents' experiences indicate the need for multidisciplinary care, better communicability, and follow-up including psychological/psychiatric support for mothers who are increasingly alone in coping with bereavement. To date, there are no guidelines for psychological support for this specific event in the literature.

Conclusions: Birth-death management should be a structured part of professional courses so that new generations of midwives can improve the quality of care for affected families. Future research should focus on how to improve communication processes, and hospital centers should adopt protocols adapted to the needs of parents, including a midwifery-led model policy based on psychological support for the mothers/couples involved, as well as increase follow-ups.