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Chapter 27 - Perinatal Loss
from Part IV - SPECIAL ISSUES
- By Shanna L. Burke, Social Worker, Florence, Massachusetts
John Patrick O'Grady, Tufts University, Massachusetts, Martin L. Gimovsky, Lucy A. Bayer-Zwirello, Kevin Giordano
Book:

Operative Obstetrics

Published online:

07 May 2010

Print publication:

04 August 2008, pp 820-830
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Summary

Work in recent decades has emphasized the importance of grieving rituals and, in the response to perinatal loss, recent experience favors proactive involvement with affected families, despite the difficulties that this presents for the birth attendants. Recognizing the importance of death and the historical limitations of medical specialists in facing these issues, this chapter explores the literature concerning perinatal losses, grief, and bereavement. Because perinatal loss is often sudden and contrary to the expectations of motherhood, it can have a particularly devastating and traumatic affect on the mother. When there is a miscarriage or a stillborn child, fathers are often overlooked during mourning, even more so than if the death involved an older child. In talking to a grieving family, health practitioners should always be honest, but they must combine this with empathy. Hospital personnel have a special and important role in perinatal grief and mourning.