Main description:

Despite research which highlights parents' increased anxiety and risk of attachment issues with the pregnancy that follows a perinatal loss, there is often little understanding that bereaved families may need different care in their subsequent pregnancies. This book explores the lived experience of pregnancy and parenting after a perinatal loss.

Meeting the Needs of Parents Pregnant and Parenting After Perinatal Loss develops a helpful framework, which integrates continuing bonds and attachment theories, to support prenatal parenting at each stage of pregnancy. Giving insight into how a parent's world view of a pregnancy may have changed following a loss, readers are provided with tools to assist parents on their journey. The book discusses each stage of a pregnancy, as well as labor and the postpartum period, before examining subjects such as multi-fetal pregnancies, reluctant terminations, use of support groups, and the experiences of fathers and other children in the family. The chapters include up-to-date research findings, vignettes from parents reflecting on their own experiences and recommendations for practice.

Written for researchers, students and professionals from a range of health, social welfare and early years education backgrounds, this text outlines what we know about supporting bereaved families encountering the challenges of a subsequent pregnancy.

Contents:

1. The Parenting Experience of Loss 2. Smooth: Preconception 3. Break-Up: A Time of Disequilibrium 4. Sorting Out: 12 Weeks to 24 weeks Gestation 5. Inwardizing: 24 to 32 Weeks Gestation 6. Expansion: 32 Weeks to Birth 7. Preparation for Labor and Birth 8. Neurotic Fitting Together: Birth Through the First Six Weeks of Life 9. Loss in a Multi-fetal Pregnancy 10. Fetal Reduction in Multi-fetal Pregnancies 11. Heartbreaking Choices 12. Offering a Therapeutic Educational Support Group 13. Bereaved Parents Raising Children 14. What About the Children? 15. Fathers/Partners: It Affects Me Too 16. Holistic Healthcare for Bereaved Parents