1st Edition

Bereavement Care for Childbearing Women and their Families An Interactive Workbook

    168 Pages
    by Routledge

    168 Pages
    by Routledge

    For many bereaved parents, the care provided by health professionals at birth – from midwives to antenatal teachers – has a crucial effect on their response to a loss or death. This interactive workbook is clearly applied to practice and has been designed to help practitioners deliver effective bereavement care.

    Providing care to grieving parents can be demanding, difficult and stressful, with many feeling ill equipped to provide appropriate help. Equipping the reader with fundamental skills to support childbearing women, partners and families who have experienced childbirth-related bereavement, this book outlines:

    • What bereavement is and the ways in which it can be experienced in relation to pregnancy and birth
    • Sensitive and supportive ways of delivering bad news to childbearing women, partners and families
    • Models of grieving
    • How to identify when a bereaved parent may require additional support from mental health experts
    • Ongoing support available for bereaved women, their partners and families
    • The impact on practitioners and the support they may require
    • How to assess and tailor care to accommodate a range of spiritual and religious beliefs about death.

    Written by two highly educated, experienced midwifery lecturers, this practical and evidence-based workbook is a valuable resource for all midwives, neonatal nurses and support workers who work with women in the perinatal period.

    This book is suitable as a text for BSc and MSc courses in Midwifery; BScs courses in Paediatric Nursing; and for neonatal and bereavement counselling courses. 

    Introduction  Chapter 1. Areas of Maternity Care that Incur Bereavement  Chapter 2. Breaking Bad News  Chapter 3. Procedures Categorised on a Bereavement Protocol  Chapter 4. Models of Grieving  Chapter 5. Difficulties with Adjusting to the Loss  Chapter 6. Ongoing Support  Chapter 7. Staff Support  Chapter 8. Assessment and Care of a Bereaved Woman and the Family’s Spiritual and Religious Needs  Conclusion

    Biography

    Caroline Hollins Martin is Professor of Midwifery at the University of Salford, UK.

    Eleanor Forrest is Lecturer in Midwifery at Glasgow Caledonian University, UK.

    "This very welcome and much needed teaching aid is ideal for midwifery students embarking on their own work relating to loss and grief. While suitably serious and firmly grounded, it is presented in a style likely to draw students in to thinking perceptively about bereavement (…) I will certainly be recommending this inexpensive book to students, encouraging them to complete the imaginative and thought-provoking exercises." – Rosemary Mander, The Practising Midwife, Vol 17, No 3, March 2014