2000 Volume 14 Issue 2 Pages 5-17
Japanese womens' and husbands' actual mental state after spontaneous abortion should be understand by health care providers. The purpose of this study is to explore husbands' reactions and women's feelings for pregnancy and having sexual intercourse after spontaneous abortion.
Forty nine women who have experienced spontaneous abortion and agreed to participate the survey were asked by sentence completion such as:“When my husband knew that our baby was not alive or when he noticed that I received the medical procedure after miscarriage, his reaction was..., ”“I felt my husband's reactions like..., ”“I felt my husband's feelings and states were..., ”“When we had sexual intercourse for the first time after miscarriage, I felt like..., ” and “Pregnancy is....”
The following husbands' feelings and reactions after spontaneous abortion were described by women.
1. Many women described their husbands'(partners') shock, surprise, and sadness.
2. Over a half of the women described that they shared and sympathized sadness and loss with their husbands, and husbands helped women to soothe and supported their coping. At the same time, some women reported their anger, blame, antipathy, sorriness, helplessness, and loneliness. Some women supported their husbands.
3. If women felt as they shared sadness and loss with husbands or their husbands were sympathetic and supportive, the women's sadness were reduced, healed, and calmed down andvice versa.
4. These results indicate that husbands' responses influence the women's grief process either way to accelerate or to delay.
5. Some women described their relationship with husbands that it became better or more intimate after miscarriage than before.
6. Most of the women described positively about their feelings for pregnancy. At the same time, many women described their ambivalent feelings as they want to have a baby and they are afraid of repetition of miscarriage. These feelings changed to eagerness to be pregnant, disappointmemt, and envy toward a person who had had a beby.
7. Only few women described their happiness and delightfulness for resuming sexual activities. Many women resumed sexual intercourse with fear for their physical recovery and anxiety that they might be pregnant or could not be pregnant and that they may repeat miscarriage. These results suggest medical staffs that both miscarried women and their husbands need psychological assessment within one to three months after spontaneous abortion and support system not only at hospitals but community.
