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

Tamarin Norwood,John Boulton

doi:10.3390/rel12110976

Abstract

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

Highlights

The aim of this paper is to show how perinatal death makes special demands upon the notion of embodied spirituality, and how these demands can be addressed through ad hoc metaphorical re-imaginings of certain insights from medical science
We have shown that an under-explored resource can be found in the wealth of existing medical knowledge of pregnancy and fetal development which, if made accessible and presented thoughtfully, can offer precious insight into the brief but meaningful life course of the baby
Support packages for parents bereaved at birth often include written materials offering advice on a range of subjects including memory-making, accessing specialist bereavement support, making funeral arrangements, and post-partum physical exercise

Summary

Introduction

The aim of this paper is to show how perinatal death makes special demands upon the notion of embodied spirituality, and how these demands can be addressed through ad hoc metaphorical re-imaginings of certain insights from medical science These ideas arise from the search for a common understanding between two distinct perspectives: the objective/clinical perspective of the children’s doctor and the subjective/poetic perspective of the grieving mother. In the following pages, we use two registers to describe the death of the baby: the first summarizing the facts, figures, and emotional consequences of this tragically commonplace event; the second describing the uniquely corporeal experience of perinatal death The purpose of this reconciliation of viewpoints is to create a model that can be used by parents in practical ways to assuage their grief by coming to understand the ways in which an unbroken lineage of bonds can be seen to exist all the way from conception to interment and beyond. As Wojtkowiak demonstrates in her study of embodied spirituality in secular ritual at the start of life, Academic Editors: Joanna Wojtkowiak and Brenda Mathijssen

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