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Perinatal Loss: Helping Families Grieve and Heal
by Ingrid Kohn and Perry-Lynn Moffitt
Parents' loss of a full-term or newborn baby is devastating. Childbirth educators are in a unique position to help parents begin the painful but vital grieving process. This article explores four ways in which childbirth educators can facilitate the grieving process: 1.) communicate sensitivity; 2.) be knowledgeable about bereavement; 3.) be familiar with your hospital's bereavement protocols; and 4.) be aware of families' needs after hospital discharge. The childbirth educator's knowledge and understanding of the grieving process can help parents immeasurably to move through their trauma and confusion, to grieve their cherished baby, and to look forward to the future with hope.
Love Letter
by Amy Wesson
This birth story is not one of a birth I have seen, yet it is one that I experienced first-hand. The process of pregnancy and childbirth are so very much a personal journey. Each woman's experience is just that -- hers. This is the beauty of creating and giving birth to a child. There is no matched experience in one's life that contains such awe and transformation. Birth is a miracle. And each baby is life's perfect creation. A stillbirth holds true to all of these ideas. We need to view it as just that in all its beauty and as another of life's miraculous events. Luke Wesson was stillborn January 7, 2005.
Depression and Grief Following Early Pregnancy Loss
by Richard Neugebauer and Jennifer Ritsher
Ten to twenty percent of clinically recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage. Research on the mental health impact and distress caused by pregnancy loss has focused on depressive symptoms. Yearning for the lost pregnancy and lost child, also key features of this bereavement, have received relatively sparse attention. We examined the frequency of symptoms of depression and of yearning (grief), in the six months following miscarriage, with grief assessed using the Perinatal Bereavement Scale, a measure evidencing excellent reliability and validity in English and Spanish. Depression and grief constitute related but distinct reactions to loss. Approximately twenty percent of women were grief-stricken at six to eight weeks and again at six months after loss. The prognostic significance of grief symptoms soon after miscarriage and an examination of whether treatments for these feelings are efficacious or warranted, merit further study.
Doulas for All
by Pamela A. Lesser, Marilyn Maurer, Suzann Stephens, and Rhona Yolkut
Our initial research study of 221 women provided the data to establish a doula program in a high-risk, urban hospital. The hospital-based program started in 1998 and provides doula care at no charge to any patient on a first-come, first-serve basis. Our doulas have provided care to over 4300 women representing about twenty-two percent of our births. Program logistics are presented along with some creative care approaches. Program outcomes reflect lower cesarean and epidural rates and greater levels of breastfeeding and satisfaction with care.
Delayed Childbearing: Underestimated Psychological Implications
by Dana Schardt
Delayed childbearing is, for various reasons, a current societal trend. Literature reports the physical risk to women thirty-five and older is higher than for their younger counterparts. Typically psychological responses to pregnancy have been focused on women under age thirty-five. Several psychological issues are identified in women choosing to delay childbearing. Women over thirty-five years of age are often underestimated in consideration of their psychological needs. The dynamics of infertility, perinatal loss, or high-risk pregnancy may create psychological distress, resulting in disappointment, guilt, anger, and jealousy, and often doubt as to one's own abilities. This paper will explore the psychological impact of delayed childbearing and implications for childbirth educators and health professionals.
To view this article (in pdf format), click here.
Childhood Abuse as Loss
by Penny Simkin
Child abuse causes much pain, confusion, and sadness to the child as she grows up. This paper explores abuse as loss, as manifested particularly during the childbearing year. Great potential for healing exists when there is good communication between the woman and her caregivers, along with sensitive individualized care. Furthermore, birth counseling offered by experienced childbirth educators and doulas is a valuable service to improve abuse survivors' experiences of birth.
Nutrition News
by Davorka Monti
Gestational Diabetes: If I eat too much sugar will I get diabetes?
Political Issues
by Naomi Bromberg Bar-Yam
Helping Others in Our Loss: Organ, Tissue, and Milk Donation
Family Focus
by Susan S. Bartell
Perinatal Loss: Understanding the Loss, Supporting the Grieving
Perinatal loss can have a profound psychological effect on parents, immediately and for months or years after the loss. It is therefore critical that those who work with mothers during pregnancy and shortly after be equipped with the information and tools necessary to support women who suffer such a loss. This issue's column discusses the process of grieving the loss of a pregnancy or newborn and offers suggestions for how a childbirth educator may play an active role in supporting parents through this very difficult period.
Audio Visual Review
by Margery Simchak
More Than Baby Blues: Unmasking Postpartum Depression
Certification Update
Research Review
by Dale King
Pain Catastrophizing
The Cochrane Library: What's New and Noteworthy
Resources
by Linda Worzer |
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