Legitimacy of grief: Fathers’ experience of suffering after pregnancy loss in cultural context.

Abstract

Presently, the role of men in the timeline of a pregnancy through labor to delivery and finally to childhood is constantly evolving, for the past five and a half decades fathers have been given the opportunity to bear witness the birth of their babies due to the development of maternity care and technology. This has created a deeper connection and attachment for both fathers and their unborn babies and when pregnancy loss occurs there is a silent sense of grief which is suffered by fathers that is unknown. With regards to this study, the aims were to identify (1) Do fathers experience suffering after a perinatal loss? (2) What are the types of suffering do they go through? (3) To identify the kind of support men, receive during or after a pregnancy loss? Two theoretical frame-works were selected from the caring science Katie Eriksson’s theory of “The suffering human being” to pinpoint that everybody experiences suffering as grief especially during the loss and nursing science Madeleine Leininger’s “Culture Care Diversity and Universality” theory to pinpoint that people from different cultures express suffering or loss differently and are bonded by values and believes. Finally, the application of findings in nursing was derived from the research questions and aims of this study to help nurses identify, provide better care and continuous support for fathers. To attain this, seventeen (17) articles were selected from various databases. A thematic analytic method was used to examine data. The method was applied due to its flexibility, which could be used for quantitative and qualitative data allowing a resourceful approach. Findings from this study indicated, that Fathers do experience suffering after perinatal loss and are disenfranchised of grief due to various factors. These factors lead to an increase in the sufferings fathers by influencing their emotional, physical and psychological well-being, creating disparities between father and mother which went unnoticed. Also, this study has shown that fathers experienced support from different sources which either affected fathers both positively and negatively resulting in the alleviation of suffering or the increase of suffering and facilitation the grieving experience. In conclusion, nurses could do more by recognizing fathers and taking them into account that they should be included into bereavement care plan, Finally nurses could engage fathers through recovery programs, engaging them culturally and educationally.