Reconciling the Uniquely Embodied Grief of Perinatal Death: A Narrative Approach

The death of a baby, stillborn or living only briefly after birth, is moral affront to the cycle life, leaving parents without life stories and material objects that traditionally offer comfort bereaved, nor—in an increasingly secularized society—a religious framework for making sense their loss. For grieving mother, it also physical affront, as her body continues rehearse its part in symbiotic relationship with baby whose own disintegrating. Attempting forge continuing bonds child makes special demands upon notion embodied spirituality, she attempts make this tragedy way. This paper, which reconciles distinct perspectives bereaved mothers children’s doctors, proposes thoughtful re-presentation medical insight into pregnancy fetal development may assuage parents’ grief by adding precious detail baby’s course, offering mother basis conceptualize distributed personhood baby.