ABSTRACT
Midwives, like nurses, are encouraged to be aware of how important such a first viewing of any deceased loved one’s body is for grieving relatives. The rewards of work for midwives include their salary and the status of the job, but greater rewards are obtained from their relationships with clients and having the autonomy to give the sort of clinical care that they see as important. Midwives do not deal with infant loss on a daily basis and therefore the notion of death saturation may not be seen as applicable. The word ‘bereft’ has a wider usage linked to other losses besides death. The characteristics of grief are described by Engel as: shock and disbelief, developing awareness, restitution, resolving the loss, idealisation and outcome. Loss creates emotional pain but that pain and the grief work it engenders takes place in a social context.
