Reproductive loss, sometimes reproductive grief, describes a potential emotional response to unsuccessful attempts at human reproduction or family-building. These experienced losses may include involuntary

childlessness Childlessness is the state of not having children. Childlessness may have personal, social or political significance. Childlessness, which may be by choice or circumstance, is distinguished from voluntary childlessness, which is voluntarily havin ...

generally,

pregnancy loss Pregnancy loss is the death of an embryo or fetus. It may include any of the following: ;Unintentional pregnancy loss: * Miscarriage ** Blighted ovum ** Ectopic pregnancy * Stillbirth * Toxic abortion, caused by pollution or chemical exposures ;Pr ...

from all causes (including ectopic pregnancy, spontaneous abortion, induced abortion, and traumatic injury),

perinatal death Perinatal mortality (PNM) refers to the death of a fetus or neonate and is the basis to calculate the perinatal mortality rate. Variations in the precise definition of the perinatal mortality exist, specifically concerning the issue of inclusion o ...

stillbirth Stillbirth is typically defined as fetal death at or after 20 or 28 weeks of pregnancy, depending on the source. It results in a baby born without signs of life. A stillbirth can result in the feeling of guilt or grief in the mother. The term ...

, infecundity and

infertility Infertility is the inability of a person, animal or plant to reproduce by natural means. It is usually not the natural state of a healthy adult, except notably among certain eusocial species (mostly haplodiploid insects). It is the normal state ...

from all causes (including voluntary, coerced or accidental sterilization, and post-menopausal infertility), failed attempts to conceive, failed fertility treatments, failed gestational surrogacy procedures, and losses related to all dimensions of the adoption process. Responses to miscarriage, stillbirth,

selective reduction Selective reduction is the practice of reducing the number of fetuses in a multiple pregnancy, such as quadruplets, to a twin or singleton pregnancy. The procedure is also called multifetal pregnancy reduction. The procedure is most commonly don ...

and neonatal death are a subtype of reproductive loss called

perinatal bereavement Perinatal bereavement or perinatal grief refers to the emotions of the family following a perinatal death, defined as the demise of a fetus (after 20 weeks gestation) or newborn infant (up to 30 days after birth). Despite the not-uncommon circumsta ...

. Reproductive loss is categorized as a non-definite loss that elicits as unique grief response and can be prone to social grief disenfranchisement. Responses to reproductive loss may be gender-specific. However, per the ''Journal of Social Philosophy'', processing these experiences is complicated by the lack of "settled cultural—or philosophical—understanding of what exactly is bad or grief-worthy about the death of an embryo/fetus or the failure of a pregnancy to produce a surviving child." Perinatal losses have been described as uniquely ambiguous in that they are "loss of a future with a family member who has not yet been integrated into family life yet maintains a psychological presence within the family system." The ambiguity of the reproductive loss may be central to its experience of the bereaved;

Maureen Corrigan Maureen Corrigan is an American author, scholar, and literary critic. She is the book critic on the NPR radio program ''Fresh Air'' and writes for the "Book World" section of ''The Washington Post''. In 2014, she wrote ''So We Read On'', a book ...

called stillbirth a "nightmare that hasn't been quite categorized." Scholarship in the journal ''Social Work'' has argued that reproductive losses can be "significant life course events that may affect identity, social role, self-image, and conceptualization of a woman's reproductive history and human sexuality across the entire range of practice settings." L. Serene Jones of

Yale Divinity School Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...

found that both American mainline Protestant and feminist communities had little discourse on the concept of reproductive loss or grief. Late-term fetal demise has been found to be a risk factor for

post-traumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on ...

in formerly pregnant women. Creative works about reproductive loss include the ''Up'' opening sequence, the film ''

Private Life Private Life may refer to: *life in the private sphere The private sphere is the complement or opposite to the public sphere. The private sphere is a certain sector of societal life in which an individual enjoys a degree of authority, unhampered by ...

'', the painting ''Henry Ford Hospital'', and the memoir '' An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination''.

References

{{psych-stub Grief Human reproduction

See also

References