Mothering Bereaved Children After Perinatal Death: Implications for Women’s and Children’s Mental Health in Canada

Abstract

Bereaved mothering after perinatal death is a unique and emergent complex phenomenon of regeneration; it emerges from the soil of devastating loss, deep sorrow, and love and continues to grow and change over the years. Bereaved mothering has not been a focus in the grief literature nor in healthcare professional practices; and yet, as reflected in the descriptions from mothers in this study, it is a phenomenon significant to the mental health of women and their children in Canada. The ways in which women in this study regenerated their mothering after their devastating losses provide guideposts for bereaved women, their children and families, and for healthcare professionals and communities who support them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)