Compassionate Clinical Practice: Supporting Men Following Perinatal Death

Jones, Kerry (2018). Compassionate Clinical Practice: Supporting Men Following Perinatal Death. In: 3rd International Children's Palliative Care Conference, 30 May - 2 Jun 2018, Durban, South Africa, ICPCN.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that men in the UK are affected by grief following the perinatal death of their baby. While there is no doubt that compassionate and sensitive care is valuable for bereaved parents and families, parents report varying accounts of what constitutes ideal practices.

This investigation forms part of a larger qualitative study in which 28 men and women participated in interviews and focus groups about their experiences of perinatal death. In drawing on these experiences, a voice centred relational method was employed to analyse data. It is a method that was framed by Brown and Gilligan at Harvard and later adapted to a sociological framework Mauthner and Doucet (1998).

Despite improvements in maternity health care services and neonatal intensive care units in the last few decades over 7 million perinatal deaths occur worldwide each year (Flenday et al, 2014). In England and in Wales, approximately 1 in every 200 babies is stillborn and 1 in every 300 dies in the first four weeks of life making the death of a baby at or around the time of birth the most common form of morality in early life (ONS, 2014; Redshawe et al, 2014).

Viewing alternatives

Item Actions

Export

You can export this page using these formats