Infant death evokes much sympathy for society, but a miscarriage and perhaps a stillbirth is less noticed, so that a mother may experience a sense of isolation that sharpens her grief. She may experience worries about future pregnancies, a sense of failure, anger at herself, and perhaps anger at her partner. A miscarriage is a shattering of the expectation of birth itself, and the lack of a ritual, e.g.a funeral can add to the isolation.
Some mothers are not even hospitalised for a miscarriage, and this can diminish the loss and adds to the grief. It is important to remember that a mother bonds with their unborn child in the first stages of pregnancy. It is equally important to remember that both parents grieve at this loss. There are a great range of emotions arising from a miscarriage, with grief complications arising from the fusion of the experiences of birth and death. Parents may search for the dead child’s identity, and they are faced with the difficult task of mourning someone they did not know, but who is such an intimate part of them.
Finally, there is the question of an abortion. One of the important points to remember is that a failure to mourn an abortion loss may give rise to delayed grieving in the context of a later loss. Failure to grieve an abortion loss is very much an individual response, and may be influenced by such aspects as relationship with parents, culture, and religious upbringing. Some women simply put it out of their minds and get on with life, experiencing a surface feeling of relief.
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