CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 35Grief, Bereavement, and Mental HealthGlobal Maternal and Child HealthMaternal and Perinatal Health Interventions

The experience of mothers and fathers in cases of stillbirth in Spain. A qualitative study

Martínez-Serrano, Paloma, Pedraz-Marcos, Azucena, Solís-Muñoz, Montserrat, Palmar-Santos, Ana María·2019·Midwifery
DOI 10.1016/j.midw.2019.06.013
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Aim To explore the experience of both the mothers and the fathers regarding the care received during delivery in cases of stillbirth.Design A hermeneutic phenomenological study based on semi-structured interviews with eleven mothers and fathers who experienced stillbirth.Participants A purposive sample was recruited in Hospital XXX of XX and through a local pregnancy loss support organization.Methods Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim and analysed using inductive thematic analysis.Findings Four main categories identified: 1) denial of grief, 2) the life and death paradox, 3) guilt, and 4) go through and overcome the loss. The parents manifested a lack of recognition of their loss and their parenthood. Although the midwife was the highest valued professional, not all the experiences were positive and the parents would have appreciated being accompanied by trained people with good communication skills. They also referred to in-hospital logistic barriers that complicated the process, as well as the fact that these births occurred in the same place where healthy deliveries were attended.Conclusion Findings highlight the importance of tailoring support systems according to mothers' and fathers' needs. Promoting social and institutional recognition of this kind of loss and training healthcare professionals in the accompaniment of this type of mourning is useful to plan comprehensive care to facilitate the initiation and subsequent evolution of healthy mourning.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.midw.2019.06.013

Cites

49 of 49 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Fathers react to unexpected news with shock, experience pain from loss, feel grief, helplessness, and despair, and have a sense of emptiness.

    “Previous studies have also found that fathers react to unexpected news with shock, experience pain from loss, feel grief, helplessness, and despair, and have a sense of emptiness.37,38”

    From Desired Care for Perinatal Bereavement: Meeting the Needs of Mothers After Discharge From the Hospital—a Qualitative Study (2024) · cites this paper as [37]

  • Privacy and time to spend with the deceased infant, training of HCPs, and support groups or programs in the facility, as well as support after discharge, impacted parents' mental health.

    “In particular, privacy and time to spend with the deceased infant,105,129,134,136,144,145,151,155 training of HCPs,105,106,109,112,118,129,131,150 and support groups or programs in the facility,106,112,134 as well as support after discharge106,112,120,122,131,140,150 impacted parents’ mental health.”

    From Bereavement care guidelines used in health care facilities immediately following perinatal loss: a scoping review (2024) · cites this paper as [129]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Martínez-Serrano, P., Pedraz-Marcos, A., Solís-Muñoz, M., & Palmar-Santos, A. M.
ORCID
Venue
Midwifery
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2019-10
Volume
77
Pages
37-44
ISSN
0266-6138 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.midw.2019.06.013
OpenAlex
W2952536435
Cited by
35
References
49
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 2
FWCI
1.17
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
Locations
  • Midwifery (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • Carlos III Institute of Health (PI10/01980)
  • Spanish Health Ministry
  • European Fund for Regional Development
  • Spanish Economy and Competitiveness Ministry
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Global Maternal and Child Health
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Obstetrics and Gynecology › Maternal and Perinatal Health Interventions
Keywords
stillbirth, parental experiences, grief, guilt, parenthood, midwifery care, mourning, health professions education
MeSH terms
Adaptation, Psychological, Adult, Bereavement, Fathers, Female, Humans, Interviews as Topic, Male, Mothers, Quality of Health Care, Spain, Patient Satisfaction, Qualitative Research, Stillbirth

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review