Death before birth: understanding, informing and supporting the choices made by people who have experienced miscarriage, termination, and stillbirth

摘要

It is estimated that approximately one in eight known pregnancies end in miscarriage, one in every 200 births is a stillbirth, and 2,000 terminations for reasons of fetal anomaly are performed in the UK each year. The unwanted end of a desired pregnancy can have profound consequences for those who experience it, which means that the provision of appropriate care is essential. How we respond to the needs of these individuals will have important consequences not just for their well-being, but also their future reproductive experiences. We report findings from an ESRC-funded study1 which employed a content-based and linguistic analysis of hospital documentation and interviews with health care practitioners, support workers and the bereaved to provide a more rounded picture of the level of care received by people who have experienced pregnancy loss in England.