COUPLES AND FETAL LOSS

An exploratory study was carried out involving 23 women and 22 partners with the main goal of examining retrospectively whether the psychological sequelae following fetal loss/miscarriage differed between those who had experienced one or at the most two miscarriages and those who experienced recurrent miscarriages. Those couples who had experienced recurrent miscarriage appeared to suffer less intense emotional reaction than the couples from the non-recurrent group. Communication between the woman and partner concerning the miscarriage also varied between the two groups, with women and partners from the recurrent group finding it a lot easier to talk to each other about the event than those in the other group. Attitudes towards subsequent pregnancy showed that there were no significant differences between the responses of the two groups of women. The partners from the non-recurrent group expected more difficulty in the subsequent pregnancy than those in the recurrent group.