Barriers to a Comprehensive Understanding of Pregnancy Loss

Abstract

Perinatal loss literature is fraught with inconsistencies that undermine the ability of researchers and the public to fully understand women's experiences of loss. Specific barriers include the use of inconsistent terminology to describe loss, conflicting research findings, the application of outdated theories to clinical care, and a lack of evidence-based practice as reported by women in research studies. These four areas are reviewed in this paper and recommendations for unifying the extant literature and systematically identifying the bereavement process are provided. Once a cohesive body of literature is developed, and the process of maternal perinatal bereavement is made clear, recommendations for practice can be tested and their contributions to the overall process of bereavement identified.