ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the emotional management of feelings in hospital settings following stillbirth and neonatal death. It also explores what it means for midwives, women and couples to manage the emotions associated with perinatal death. The chapter draws on sociological theories of performativity and emotional labour to explain what might be happening at the level of interaction between professionals and parents. Sociological theory is useful in explaining the construction of professional responses, not only by challenging the assumptions on which expectations about the management of feelings are based, but also in highlighting the dangers that are inherent in any prescribed forms of behaviour. The professions of nursing and midwifery, the practitioners most often involved in the care of women and couples following stillbirth and neonatal death, are populated almost entirely by women. The chapter examines the extent to which their responses were social performances in that they produced a response that was in keeping with the new orthodoxy.
