Pregnancy Loss and the Grieving Process. What Women and Their Partners Share

ABSTRACT The termination of pregnancy, whether spontaneous or voluntary, involves an intense emotional impact on both the woman and her partner which alters their emotional world. The high percentage of women who suffer a perinatal loss, and the emotional repercussions it entails in both the short and long term, make it necessary to rethink the work of the specialties which attend the perinatal population (psychology, pediatrics, gynecology, obstetrics, psychiatry …) to acknowledge the importance of a frequent yet particularly silenced grieving process. In this article focus will be placed on the perinatal losses which occur during gestation, a mourning process which ebbs and flows, which has its own symptomatology and one which also requires its own bespoke attention, training, and therapeutic listening. From reflection and clinical practice, relevant aspects which occur during this therapeutic process will be addressed. This professional accompaniment, which is necessary yet scarce, aims to enable the woman and her partner to sufficiently work through their grief, alleviate the current symptomatology and, in the case of a subsequent pregnancy, reduce the risk of emotional imbalance in the mother, her partner and the future baby, which can lead to perinatal depression in the parents or emotional development problems in the baby.