Maternal Mental Status and Pregnancy - Importance of the Missing Peace

Abstract

Does the Prenatal Information is a Burden to a Happy Pregnancy? The changes in the prenatal care and information available to the expectant mothers through the health care provides, media, availability of home-based fetal heart rate monitoring, 3D and 4D ultrasound images has brought up the question: Is the prenatal diagnosis of fetal status the friend of foe of the happy pregnancy? The answer might depend on maternal perception and the fetal status. The knowledge of the pre-natal diagnosis of the fetal anomaly might be viewed as a “theft the pleasures and joy of pregnancy” [11]. Especially in cases of the lethal anomalies, the couples are facing the choice of termination after diagnosis or palliative care for a lethal anomaly [12]. The information about families who continue a pregnancy after receiving a prenatal diagnosis of congenital anomaly is lacking. The maternal grief, associated with the prenatal diagnosis of the lethal anomaly is described as a loss of healthy pregnancy, loss of perfect or ideal child, loss of sense of normalcy and loss of planned birth experience [13]. Less is known about the mental status of the women in pregnancies, associated with the diagnosis of a non-lethal anomaly [14], the expectant mothers are experiencing different emotional themes: “time is good, but it is also the enemy; you grieve, but you do not grieve; my baby’s not perfect, but (s) he’s still mine” [14], accompanied by the grief of “multiple losses, arrested parenting, my baby is a person, fragmented health care, disconnected family and friends, and utterly alone” [15].