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. 2024 Nov 25;24(1):778.
doi: 10.1186/s12884-024-06906-0.

Socio-cultural practices and experience of mothers' post stillbirth and newborn death: a population-based perspective from India

Moutushi Majumder  1 , G Anil Kumar  1 , Sarah Binte Ali  2 , Sibin George  1 , Siva Prasad Dora  1 , Md Akbar  1 , Shuchi Sree Akhouri  2 , Sweta Kumari  2 , Tanmay Mahapatra  2 , Rakhi Dandona  3   4 ; ENHANCE 2020 Team
Collaborators, Affiliations

Socio-cultural practices and experience of mothers' post stillbirth and newborn death: a population-based perspective from India

Moutushi Majumder et al. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. .

Abstract

Introduction: We report on post stillbirth and newborn death socio-cultural experience of women from a population-based representative sample in the Indian state of Bihar.

Methods: A state-representative sample of 7,270 births between July 2020 and June 2021 was sampled, including 582 stillbirths and 831 newborn deaths. Detailed confidential interviews were conducted with the consenting women with stillbirth and newborn death to understand their post-birth experience.

Results: A total of 501 (86.1% participation) women with stillbirth and 717 (86.3% participation) with neonatal death provided interview. Able to talk to someone about their baby and receiving support to cope with their loss were reported by 369 (74.2%) and 398 (80.2%) women with stillbirth; these proportions were 76.7% and 77.3% for women with newborn deaths, respectively. More than 80% of these women reported spouses as their main source of support. At least one negative experience was reported by 150 (30.9%) and 233 (32.5%) women with stillbirth and newborn death, respectively. The most commonly reported negative experience was receiving insensitive/hurtful comments about the baby (18.6% for stillbirth and 20.4% for newborn deaths), followed by being blamed for the baby's death (14.3% for stillbirths and 15.0% for newborn deaths). The majority of women reported being verbally abused by the mother-in-law for both stillbirth (24, 63.2%) and newborn death (49, 64.5%); while 48 (67.6%) and 66 (61.7%) women were blamed by the mother-in-law for stillbirth and neonatal death, respectively. Most women with stillbirth (72.7%) and with neonatal death (77.1%) were asked to forget about their babies as a means to cope with their loss. Naming, seeing, and holding the stillborn were reported by 56 (11.2%), 229 (45.9%), and 64 (12.8%) women with a stillborn.

Conclusion: With one-third women with adverse birth outcome reporting negative experience, this translates into a significant number of women in India as it accounts for high numbers of stillbirths and newborn deaths globally. These population-based data can facilitate in designing interventions to improve post-partum experience for women with adverse birth outcomes in India.

Keywords: Bihar; Cultural practices; India; Negative experience; Neonatal death; Post-partum maternal health; Social support; Stillbirth.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: ENHANCE 2020 was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of the Public Health Foundation of India. All participants provided written informed consent, and for those who could not read or write, the participant information sheet and consent form were explained by the trained interviewer, and a thumb impression was obtained. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Distribution of family members who provided supportive experience as reported by women with stillbirth and neonatal death. Not mutually exclusive
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Distribution of family members responsible for negative experience as reported by women with stillbirth and neonatal death. Not mutually exclusive
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Distribution of reasons reported by women with stillbirth as to why they did not see or hold their baby. Data not available for 3 women
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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