Abstract
Ministers often are estranged from the loss experience of women who miscarry. This paper gives medical information about such spontaneous abortions, describes several factors that shape the woman's experience, and explores possible pastoral response.
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References Notes
Ethel Nurge, “Spontaneous and Induced Abortion in Human and Nonhuman Primates,” inBeing Female Reproduction, Power, Change Dana Raphael, ed. (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1975), p. 27.
The Boston Women's Health Book Collective,Our Bodies, Our Selves: A Book by and for Women, 2nd ed. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976), p. 321.
Nurge, p. 26.
Our bodies, p. 321.
Susan Borg and Judith Lasker,When Pregnancy Fails (Boston: Beacon Press, 1981), pp. 38–39.
Ibid, pp. 36–37.
For actual pictures and an excellent text depicting the physical growth of the fetus throughout this time period, see Lennart Nilsson,A Child Is Born (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, 1966).
Borg and Lasker, pp. 27–28.
This factor of prenatal care is illustrated by a doubling in the rate of miscarriages among blacks as opposed to whites. Leslie Aldridge Westoff and Charles F. Westoff,From Now to Zero: Fertility, Contraception, and Abortion in America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), p.32.
Indirectly, it is “a woman 's attitude toward herself, toward her fetus, and toward the society within which she is carrying her child” that influences her chances of carrying the baby to term. For these affect whether or not she receives optimal prenatal care. Arthur D. Coleman and Libby Lee Coleman,Pregnancy: The Psychological Experience (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), p. 153.
Jennie Katherine Kline, “The Epidemiology of Spontaneous Abortion: An Analysis of Selected Factors,” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1977.
Nathan Simon, David Rothman, and Jan Goff, “Psychological Factors Related to Spontaneous and Therapeutic Abortion,”american Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 104, 1969, pp. 799–806.
Dan Hertz, “Rejection of Motherhood: a Psychosomatic Appraisal of Habitual Abortion,”Psychosomatics 14, No. 4 (July 1973), pp. 241–44.
C. Tupper and R. J. Weil, “Personality, Life Situation, and Communication: A Study of Habitual Abortion,”Psychosomatic Medicine 22 (1960), pp. 448–55.
“The Problem of Spontaneous Abortion: The Treatment of Habitual Abortors by Psychotherapy,”American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 83 (1962), pp. 421–24.
L. Kay, A. Malmquist, and A. Hilsson, “Psychiatric Aspects of Spontaneous Abortion: The Importance of Bereavement, Attachment, and Neurosis in Early Life,”Journal of Psychosomatic Research 13 (1969), pp. 53–59.
Helen Deutsch,The Psychology of Women, vol. 2, “Motherhood” (New York: Grune and Stratton, 1945).
Borg and Lasker, p. 34.
M. D. S. Ainsworth, “The Development of Infant-Mother Attachment,” inReview of Child Development Research, vol. 3, Beetye, Caldwell, and Riccuiti, eds. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973).
Our Bodies, p. 264.
Barbara Eck Menning, “Psychological Issues in Infertility,” inPsychological Aspects of Pregnancy, Birthing, and Bonding (New York: Human Sciences Press), pp. 44–45.
Borg and Lasker, p. 35.
Robert Corney and Frederick Horton, “Pathological Grief Following Spontaneous Abortion,”American Journal of Psychiatry 131, no. 7 (July 1974), pp. 825–27.
For an excellent discussion of similar problems of grief related to infertility, see Menning, pp. 36–43.
Research published in 1980 by Larry G. Peppers and Ronald J. Knapp (“Maternal Reaction to Involuntary Fetal/Infant Death,”Psychiatry 43 (May 1980, pp. 155–59) compares the grief reactions of women who had suffered miscarriages, stillbirths, and neonatal deaths. The authors report no difference in the intensity of the grief response among the women, regardless of the type of loss. They note that this finding is contrary to the beliefs that attachment and bonding begin at birth or that the quality of a relationship is associated with the length of time invested in it. They point out that there are other factors that intensify or mitigate the grief, such as a history of pregnancy difficulties or subsequent children. But they warn professionals against the “traditional fallacious belief that a mother grieves less in the case of a miscarriage than when a relationship has been formed with a live baby” (p. 158).
Rose Medical Center in Denver has such a group, dealing with topics such as these: imminent decisions, grief, reactions of relatives and friends, special thoughts for fathers, helping your other children deal with the loss, and thinking about another pregnancy. For further information, contact the Parent Education Office of Rose Medical Center, at (303) 320-2713.
For an excellent resource, in addition toWhen Pregnancy Fails (cited above), see Hank Pizer and Christine O'Brien Palinski,Coping with MisCarriage (New York: New American Library, 1980).
See Swanee Hunt-Meeks, “The Motherhood of God: A Symbol for Pastoral Care” inThe Iliff Review (Denver, Criterion Press, 1980) pp. 27–37.
Harriet Sarnoff Schiff,The Bereaved Parent (New York: Penguin, 1977), p. 110.
Additional information
Swanee Hunt is a candidate for Th.D. in pastoral care and counseling at Iliff School of Theology, Denver, Colorado. She is part of an ecumenical ministry team that serves both a Presbyterian church community and a Catholic church community.
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Hunt, S. Pastoral care and miscarriage: A ministry long neglected. Pastoral Psychol 32, 265–278 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01046320
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01046320