‘Now I’m a weird mother who doesn’t care’: Women’s experiences of pregnancy remains disposal following miscarriage in England

Abstract

ABSTRACT Pregnancy ends and its materials are framed differently depending on the social and historical context. Engaging with scholarship on the plasticity of meaning around pregnancy materials, this paper illustrates how the approach to pregnancy remains has changed in England since the 1980s, with remains progressively being treated as human remains with associated assumption of mourning. The paper revisits interview data collected between 2014–2016 with women who had recently miscarried, revealing diversity in approaches to miscarriage and pregnancy remains. The women’s experiences preceded the issuance of guidance by the Human Tissue Authority (HTA) in 2015, which informed revising of clinical approaches to pregnancy remains disposal. The data is important in documenting practices around pregnancy remains and the way such approaches were formalised in activities of care. During the unfamiliar experience of miscarriage, the clinic was a key site of prescription and exploration, having a defining role in the meaning of pregnancy materials. Drawing on ethnographic research the paper provides examples of how women navigate these practices and possible frictions that emerge when approaches differ. The paper argues that clinical practices do not provide sufficient flexibility to respond to the diversity of women’s approaches to their pregnancy material.