Perinatal Loss

Intended for nurses, doctors, midwives, social workers, chaplains, and hospital support staff, this guide gives caring and practical advice for helping families grieve properly after losing a child at birth. As the special needs of families experiencing perinatal loss are intense and require more than just the bereavement standards in most hospitals, this handbook offers tips and suggestions for opening up communication between caregivers and families, creating a compassionate bedside environment, and helping with mourning rituals. Encouraging continual grief support, these specific companioning strategies can help ease the pain of this most sensitive situation.

The death of a baby is one of the most painful experiences anyone can imagine. This practical, compassionate text guides professionals in providing the best possible care through the physical and emotional pain of a pregnancy loss from early miscarriage to neonatal death, enabling patients and their families to grieve. Written by two professionals with extensive experience in the field, the book inspires confidence for those confronted with this challenging task. It focuses on common issues that inhibit good care and addresses the traditionally difficult topics. Healthcare staff assisting patients during this time often require support of their own and this is also addressed with constructive, inspirational approaches and ideas for professional training. Perinatal Loss: a handbook for working with women and their families offers insights, information and support for managing pregnancy loss for all professionals and students including nurses, sonographers, midwives, doctors (including obstetricians and general practitioners), chaplains and morticians. 'This is an important and warmly welcomed book which thoroughly endorses the key aims of Sands (Stillbirth & Neonatal Death Society). In particular, it demonstrates a forceful commitment to improving care for bereaved families whilst acknowledging the difficult task that staff undertake when caring for them. This handbook encompasses all aspects of perinatal loss, giving due care and attention to the many different circumstances and exploring the thoughts and feelings which are experienced when a baby dies at any gestation.' From the Foreword by Julia Gray

A collection of lectures by eminent members of the British Psycho-analytical Society. Includes papers on the experience of having a baby, pregnancy and the internal world, pregnancy after stillbirth or neonatal death, and therapeutic intervention for post-partum disturbance.

The death of a baby is one of the most painful experiences anyone can imagine. This practical, compassionate text guides professionals in providing the best possible care through the physical and emotional pain of a pregnancy loss from early miscarriage to neonatal death, enabling patients and their families to grieve. Written by two professionals with extensive experience in the field, the book inspires confidence for those confronted with this challenging task. It focuses on common issues that inhibit good care and addresses the traditionally difficult topics. Healthcare staff assisting patients during this time often require support of their own and this is also addressed with constructive, inspirational approaches and ideas for professional training. Perinatal Loss: a handbook for working with women and their families offers insights, information and support for managing pregnancy loss for all professionals and students including nurses, sonographers, midwives, doctors (including obstetricians and general practitioners), chaplains and morticians. 'This is an important and warmly welcomed book which thoroughly endorses the key aims of Sands (Stillbirth & Neonatal Death Society). In particular, it demonstrates a forceful commitment to improving care for bereaved families whilst acknowledging the difficult task that staff undertake when caring for them. This handbook encompasses all aspects of perinatal loss, giving due care and attention to the many different circumstances and exploring the thoughts and feelings which are experienced when a baby dies at any gestation.' From the Foreword by Julia Gray

Written especially for parents who have lost a child, Trying Again provides facts to help determine whether you, or your partner, are emotionally ready for another pregnancy.

Everything doesn't (always) happen for a reason. Infertility and pregnancy loss can be devastating, yet both are often private sorrows for the one in six people who cope with the experience. This collection offers personal stories about what it's like to go through the emotional and physical facets of infertility, miscarriage, and pregnancy loss: the pain, sadness, and desperation, the hope, humour, and frustration. Through, Not Around offers reassurance to those in the midst of their own struggles that they are not alone and that it is possible to find acceptance and strength on the other side of grief. The way forward is by going through the grief, not around it. Allison McDonald Ace, Ariel Ng Bourbonnais, and Caroline Starr are co-founders of The 16 Percent, a website dedicated to sharing stories of pregnancy loss and infertility. To read or share your story, visit the16percent.ca.

Despite research which highlights parents’ increased anxiety and risk of attachment issues with the pregnancy that follows a perinatal loss, there is often little understanding that bereaved families may need different care in their subsequent pregnancies. This book explores the lived experience of pregnancy and parenting after a perinatal loss. Meeting the Needs of Parents Pregnant and Parenting After Perinatal Loss develops a helpful framework, which integrates continuing bonds and attachment theories, to support prenatal parenting at each stage of pregnancy. Giving insight into how a parent’s world view of a pregnancy may have changed following a loss, readers are provided with tools to assist parents on their journey. The book discusses each stage of a pregnancy, as well as labor and the postpartum period, before examining subjects such as multi-fetal pregnancies, reluctant terminations, use of support groups, and the experiences of fathers and other children in the family. The chapters include up-to-date research findings, vignettes from parents reflecting on their own experiences and recommendations for practice. Written for researchers, students and professionals from a range of health, social welfare and early years education backgrounds, this text outlines what we know about supporting bereaved families encountering the challenges of a subsequent pregnancy.