Humanizing the Language and Experience of Pregnancy Loss in Health Care.

Abstract

The experience of pregnancy loss is a relatively common, but seldom discussed event in many families' reproductive years. Accordingly, this occurrence is one of the most common poor outcomes treated in healthcare. The narratives in this issue present several themes shared widely despite a diversity of circumstances in how women and their families experience pregnancy loss. Unfortunately, negative experiences within the healthcare system-with both providers and the process of medical treatment, surfaced as a common theme. These articulated experiences prompt a reflection on how pregnancy loss is perceived, described, and communicated about in medicine. Notably, the stories reflect the outcome of several patterns in medicine that can introduce bias and harm in the patient-physician interaction. First, there are inconsistencies within healthcare of how pregnancy loss is named and defined, and second, there is a sharp distinction in how early and later losses are considered medically. These medical considerations affect the vocabulary medical providers use to describe and discuss pregnancy, pregnancy loss, and its related management. This language, in turn, conveys values, and thus potential depersonalization and bias. These stories echoed a need for acknowledgement of the individual's specific situation through open listening and affirmation of the life lost, however that is defined by the parent. The narratives also prompt a consideration of the need for streamlined and individualized processes for acquiring information, receiving treatment, and memorializing a child after a pregnancy loss.