WHEN THE BABY IS GONE...: A QUALITATIVE EXPLORATION OF WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF BABY LOSS

2022-11-04
Aydoğ, Sezin
The death of a loved one is considered as the most stressful of life events, and the loss of a child is portrayed as the most distressing and long-lasting of all griefs. The present study intends to examine women’s experience of baby loss from a psychoanalytic perspective regarding the issues of femininity, motherhood, and subsequent pregnancy and motherhood experiences. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five women, who had lost their first-born babies due to natural causes within the first year following the baby’s birth. Reflexive thematic analysis approach was utilized, and five main themes were generated from the data. The themes were “motherly grief”: a unique loss that will never fade away, reactions to the baby loss, bereavement in relation to others, coming to terms with the loss: coping strategies, and the effects of the loss on the subsequent pregnancy and motherhood experience. The results of the study were discussed in the light of the literature and clinical implications, and suggestions for future studies were provided.

Suggestions

Death rituals, religious beliefs, and grief of Turkish women
Aksoz-Efe, Idil; Erdur Baker, Özgür; Servaty-Seib, Heather (Informa UK Limited, 2018-01-01)
Grief following a death loss is a common experience that all individuals face at some point in life. There, however, are only a few in-depth studies regarding grief in cultures around the world and specific roles that rituals and beliefs related to death may have in the grieving process. Results of interview data from eight grieving Turkish women revealed three themes: (a) metaphors of loss, (b) funeral rituals, and (c) rituals in relation to control and personal factors. Overall, participants' sense of con...
Cultural Characteristics of Grief and Coping in Bereaved Adult Women: A Phenomenological Study with Consensual Qualitative Research
Özmen, Onur; Erdur Baker, Özgür; Department of Educational Sciences (2014)
This study aimed to describe the experiences, expressions, and coping mechanisms of American and Turkish adult women’s bereavement and grief upon loss of a loved one. For this purpose, two Consensual Qualitative Analyses (CQR) were conducted with the woman participants from the USA (n=10) and Turkey (n=10). A semi-structured interview protocol including open-ended questions were used to gather qualitative data. Categories and subcategories revealed by the qualitative data were clustered in the three domains...
PROLONGED GRIEF IN LIMB LOSS: A MIXED DESIGN STUDY
Alma, Leyla; Öner Özkan, Bengi; Işıklı, Sedat; Department of Psychology (2023-3-28)
Human beings are prone to loss or threat to lose in each stage of life, and the grief is inevitable. However, if the grief process becomes incomplete and lasts more than expected, mourners suffer from Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD). This study aimed to examine the role of the PGD in an amputee sample and was planned to be two-folded using both quantitative and qualitative methods. In the first study, it was aimed to examine the relationship among prolonged grief, psychological symptoms, the association of f...
The contributory roles of attachment styles, coping and affect regulation strategies on bereavement
Ayaz, Tuğba; Karancı, Ayşe Nuray; Department of Psychology (2011)
Grieving is a normal reaction to the loss of a loved one. According to the attachment theory, individual’s attachment style plays an important role in determining individual differences following loss. Firstly, in the present study, it was aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Two Track Model of Bereavement Questionnaire (TTBQ). With this aim, the data was collected from 206 individuals who lost a significant one. It was found that Turkish version of the TTBQ(TTBQ-T) had a Cronbach Alpha of .9...
Children’s Well Being after Deceased Fathers: A Qualitative Analysis of Mothers’ Views
Özdemir, Münevver; Eruyar, Şeyda; Yazıcı, Hikmet; Vosyanis, Panos (ODTÜ- AYNA Klinik Psikoloji Destek Ünitesi, 2022-10)
Death of a parent has adverse effects on the child’s well-being. The surviving parent is often the most important source of support for the child and a close witness of the child bereavement process. The aim of this study was to understand the perceived effects of paternal bereavement on children’s mental health and coping strategies through their mothers’ narratives. Adopting qualitative research methods, semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine mothers who had lost their spouses. Thematic analy...
Citation Formats
S. Aydoğ, “WHEN THE BABY IS GONE...: A QUALITATIVE EXPLORATION OF WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF BABY LOSS,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2022.