Perinatal Loss: Intensity and Duration of Emotional Recovery

This article seeks to expand our concept of the intense grief process that parents endure in suffering the loss of a baby. It is based on our experience of eighteen years in counseling bereaved parents in our perinatal support group program at Children's Medical Center, Dayton, Ohio. There are unique characteristics of parental grief that are not accounted for in our theories to date. Full emotional expression has been emphasized as helpful although it has been recognized in recent research findings that it may not be necessary for all individuals. Here we address how to conceptualize the continuous alternation of denial and acceptance as parents grieve and the lack of definitive resolution. We apply Berenson's Map of Emotions to this issue in developing a working clinical model of the mourning process.