Coping with stillbirth
GOING through a stillbirth is not the best of experiences. A mother has been expecting and has willingly carried a pregnancy’ with all its challenges only to end up with a traumatic psychological and physical experience. Many of the cases of stillbirth can be avoided by closely monitoring complicated pregnancies, investigating and managing them effectively. Where necessary, patients should be administered carefully and given specialized. care until they deliver.
In some cases, delivery can be done earlier than the expected date and the newborn given support care in the nursery. In cases of complicated and high risk pregnancies, it is extremely important to listen to the patient’s views and complaints. It may be the only time to save a situation especially when there is excess bleeding, reduced or no foetal movement, as these are not good signs.
It is extremely traumatizing for a woman to carry a dead foetus without her knowledge, even more so when she has complained of no foetal movement or requested for investigations but not much has been done to address her concerns. A dead foetus can also cause excessive bleeding during pregnancy, labour and after delivery-a condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulopathy.
In every clinic, service providers must examine their patients properly after taking detailed notes of the pregnant mum’s observations about her pregnancy. Missing a diagnosis or evaluation of a patient’s real problem can be extremely catastrophic and disappointing. The objective must always be to promote best practices in client care during pregnancy. If a woman expects a live baby and ends up with one that was long dead in the womb-especially after attending antenatal clinic-she may feel this is unforgivable. She definitely deserves an explanation. This is even worse when she has followed all the instructions given by the doctor to the letter.
Peer grouping of mothers in wards can be supportive, such as in the case of Rhoda. When one discovers that she is not alone with the problems she has experienced, this eases negative reactions to her own situation. However, the first child has always had a special place in every woman’s life, hence it is virtually impossible to completely wipe out the trauma. Unfortunately, this is an experience the woman has to carry for the rest of her life. This is why all first pregnancies should be given special care.
In the family, such an experience can be hard to bear. The behaviour and reaction of other people, although innocent and well intentioned, can add trauma to the already badly wounded mother. Some might start blaming her for various imagined reasons. Others might express sympathy instead of empathy, with negative effects on the already distressed family. Women and families who have undergone such experiences need to be very strong and require every support possible in order to overcome their grief, especially where there is no other child around in the house to console them and the fate of future pregnancies looks bleak. At such times, the mother is not even sure whether she will ever be able to conceive or even sustain a normal pregnancy.
All service providers should thus take adequate care of their clients to avoid any accidents. Pregnant women and their spouses should also be informed of all danger signs in pregnancy.
END: PG 9 / 53