Men share their partners’ grief when a baby dies but they often face a very different challenge in coming to terms with one of the greatest pains anyone can suffer.
Fewer than half (46%) of maternity units in the UK provide mandatory bereavement care training and one in three Health Trusts and Boards does not have dedicated bereavement rooms in each maternity unit to help parents cope with a stillbirth.
The calls for better services mark this year’s Baby Loss Awareness Week, from October 9 – 15, with the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death charity SANDS reporting that an average of 15 babies die each day in the UK shortly before, after or during birth.
Not Acknowledged
The 2014 survey “Listening to Parents” by a maternal and infant health research unit at Oxford University examined the effectiveness of support for bereaved parents and pointed out the imbalance of support between mothers and their partners.
While doctors and midwives were thought by most partners to have communicated well with them during pregnancy, labour and birth a third did not feel they were listened to or only “to some extent”. Some 33% of partners did not always feel that their concerns were taken seriously and 39% felt their needs were not understood. “While most partners were present when women were told that their baby had died (77%), not all couples were given the news together and some were single women,” said the report.
“With regard to decision-making in what was a difficult and changing set of circumstances, similar percentages of fathers and partners did not always feel part of what was happening.
Thirty six per cent did not always feel fully informed and that they had a sufficient part in decision-making and 34% were not entirely confident about the decisions made,” said the report, which emphasised the positive effect of a partner’s involvement.
“Women frequently referred to the presence of their partner and his active role as supporter and advocate, particularly in the context of being given bad news, in relation to labour and being together with their baby.”
Some 17% of mothers who took a bereavement room after a stillbirth said their partner could not stay in the room and 19% said they could not be with their baby there.
Shutting Down
While the male mind is a difficult mechanism in any relationship it becomes even more complicated in grief. “Mainly for Fathers” is a SANDS guidance document for bereaved partners and explains the difficult position fathers face supporting a partner.
“Many fathers find it hard to deal with frequent and open expressions of emotion,” it notes. “It can be incredibly hard to see your partner’s distress and be unable to help. Some fathers feel unsure about what they can say to their partner or feel pressure to express more emotion than they are able to. Some fathers say that there are times when they simply want to ‘switch off’, ‘close down’ or ‘get away for a bit.'”
The Listening to Parents report found more women than men used a greater variety of support options like counsellors and bereavement midwives while some fathers did not talk to anyone at all and more than one in ten reported feeling anxiety and depression after their loss.
by Stewart Vickers
The post NHS: Fathers Neglected After Stillbirth appeared first on Felix Magazine.
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