Helping Parents to Grieve after Second Trimester Termination of Pregnancy for Fetopathic Reasons

The main interest in our study was to find out if advice given to facilitate mourning after perinatal child loss (looking at the dead child, picture, burial) could be used to help parents terminating pregnancies for fetopathic reasons. To evaluate the acceptance and to compare the outcome in grief reactions we interviewed women undergoing termination of pregnancy for fetopathic reasons 1-2 days after the loss of the child and they answered a mailed questionnaire 8 weeks later. For comparison we assessed data from women with spontaneous child losses within the 12th to 24th week of pregnancy in a similar way. No difference in the extent of creating memories between the two groups of child losses could be assessed (44% of women after termination and 55% after spontaneous loss looked at their dead child). Making the dead baby a tangible person led to stronger grief reactions immediately after the loss without significant difference due to the kind of loss. But 8 weeks later women after spontaneous child losses reported significantly more mourning than those after termination. It could be shown that women do mourn after termination of pregnancy, that creating memories leads to more intense grief reactions shortly after the loss and that grief diminishes over time. The advice given to facilitate mourning after perinatal child loss can be transferred to parents dealing with termination of pregnancy for fetopathic reasons although coping seems to be more complicated in the latter situation.