ABSTRACT
To illustrate this approach, the management of a stillbirth or early neonatal death in the John Radcliffe Maternity Unit, Oxford, will be described. The management plan was set up in 1978 as part of a study evaluating the effectiveness of a programme of support and counselling for parents after perinatal death. Fifty families were recruited to the study, and follow-up was continued for 14 months. The detailed results of the study have been reported elsewhere.s
A Stillborn Baby
like other workers in this field, we found that women whose baby had died in utero were very fearful of the labour and delivery, and had many unpleasant fantasies about what was happening to their dead baby. One woman wondered how it would be possible to give birth to a dead baby at all; another was tormented by the thought of delivering a 'decomposed, shapeless lump of cells'. If they expressed these uncertainties and fears, they were sometimes called 'morbid' or 'ghoulish' by the staff.
