ABSTRACT

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.

chapter 1|18 pages

The parenting experience of loss

chapter 2|10 pages

Smooth phase

Preconception

chapter 3|12 pages

Break-up phase

Disequilibrium

chapter 4|17 pages

Sorting-out phase

12–24 weeks gestation

chapter 5|12 pages

Inwardizing phase

24–32 weeks gestation

chapter 6|9 pages

Expansion phase

32 weeks–birth

chapter 7|13 pages

Preparation for labor and birth

chapter 8|10 pages

“Neurotic” fitting-together phase

Birth–first six weeks of life

chapter 9|13 pages

Loss in a multi-fetal pregnancy

chapter 10|25 pages

Fetal reduction in multi-fetal pregnancies

chapter 11|16 pages

Heart-breaking choices

chapter 13|10 pages

Bereaved parents raising children

chapter 14|14 pages

What about the children?

chapter 15|11 pages

Fathers

It affects me too

chapter 16|10 pages

Holistic health care for bereaved parents