Phenomenological Description on the Care of Stillbirths

Abstract

As perinatal medical staff support births, they also often experience the death of children. The overlap of these two extreme experiences greatly impacts the midwives who are providing care at the time, according to an investigation conducted about midwives’sorrow(Okanaga, 2005). In particular, it has been reported that there is a tendency for midwives to feel a sense of guilt when there is an embryonic death while the midwife has been caring for the mother during her pregnancy(Tsuda, 2015). This paper focuses on the nursing practice of Midwife C. Through her narrative she contemplates the meaning of “continuing pregnancy” after a child whom she was caring for passed away from anencephaly. By using phenomenological nursing research, the purpose of this study is to clarify what kind of support is required by nurses who are going through such experiences. The factors include the experiences of the care for “the unusual coldness” of a child who passed away during a homebirth. This shows that nurses create their own value system while contemplating their culpability in terms of their sense of ethics.