50 Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan
joyful mother, some women find themselves feeling guilty and ashamed for
having any negative feelings about a birth that has resulted in a healthy baby.
Societal messages such as “at least you have a healthy baby” trigger some
women to disenfranchise their own grief and feel bad as mothers for harbor-
ing grief. Their healing was hindered by the experienced shame (Attig, 2004;
Neimeyer, 2005–2006).The Social Impact of the LossSome women talked openly about their frustration with their partners who
were not emotionally supportive of their reconciling with the birth experience.
Mary felt that her husband was completely supportive of her but still “he just
doesn’t get it.” Elizabeth hoped that her husband could just “try to understand
and put yourself in my shoes a little bit!” and “oh God, can I have just one
ounce of compassion and understanding about this?” Grieving alone when
they have been through the childbirth together with their partners leaves some
women isolated and disenfranchised in their feelings as Andrea recalled in
tears: “Yeah, it was very lonely for sure.” They were often urged by their part-
ners to move on, forget about the birth, and focus on the positive. At the same
time, the partner may also experience a loss of an imagined role during child-
birth and could struggle to provide support to the woman due to his own feel-
ings of shame, anger, and unspoken grief.
Another important relationship that might be affected by the loss of
the dreamed of birth is the relationship with the care provider. In the tech-
nocratic model of care, women may not develop caring relationships due to
the mechanization of the process and providers’ failure to recognize the spiri-
tual nature of birth and women’s related needs (Mauger, 1998). Many women
report feeling abandoned, alienated from their experience and misunderstood
or ridiculed by hospital staff and their birth attendants (Kitzinger, 2006). These
feelings can foster a traumatic association with the birth process and trigger a
grief response to the lost connectedness with the provider (Lyerly, 2013).InterventionsNarrative therapy interventions seemed to be most appropriate in working
with women who have experienced disenfranchised grief after the loss of
their dreamed of birth. As Lewis Mehl-Madrona states: “Everything is a story,
including our identities, our selves, our meanings and purposes, our theories
about the world” (2010, p. 12). Simply witnessing one’s pain validates the loss
and the grief experience. The cocreation of a grief narrative which is part of
the woman’s birth story can facilitate the re-inventing of a new self-narrative.
Psycho-education about grief and loss and about the developmental
tasks one has to achieve will also normalize women’s feelings and validate
their reaction to a disappointing birth experience. Also other creative therapies
such as participation in healing circles, art therapy, journaling, and meditation
can be helpful.
Additionally, mindfulness informed therapies can help women to accept
their feelings toward the birth and foster loving kindness toward them-
selves, which further validates their previously disenfranchised grief. Healing