November 9, 2010
Blurb
Benedict Carey, Science Times
...Most women survive the loss without lasting psychological distress. But the experience can hit as hard as the death of a spouse or any other family member, and women’s reactions can be extreme in the months after the loss. Some isolate themselves, hiding their grief; others lean on friends and family for support; most consider the fetus to be very much a part of themselves, a ghostly presence.
“The attachment to the fetus lasts long after the pregnancy is over, for months and sometimes years,” said Richard Neugebauer, an epidemiologist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University.
In a landmark 1997 study, Dr. Neugebauer found that the rate of depression was more than twice the average among 229 women who recently experienced a spontaneous miscarriage. The timing did not matter: women were at higher risk regardless of whether the pregnancy failed after eight weeks or the child was stillborn.
The study also documented a yearning, a grief that lasted for many months and seemed to stalk the women like some shadow of the lost child, Dr. Neugebauer said. A number of women patted their bellies as if they were still pregnant; others would see children on the street, strangers, and have a sudden, visceral sensation: “That’s my child.”
Read more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/health/10miscarriage.html?src=me&ref=h...
...Most women survive the loss without lasting psychological distress. But the experience can hit as hard as the death of a spouse or any other family member, and women’s reactions can be extreme in the months after the loss. Some isolate themselves, hiding their grief; others lean on friends and family for support; most consider the fetus to be very much a part of themselves, a ghostly presence.
“The attachment to the fetus lasts long after the pregnancy is over, for months and sometimes years,” said Richard Neugebauer, an epidemiologist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University.
In a landmark 1997 study, Dr. Neugebauer found that the rate of depression was more than twice the average among 229 women who recently experienced a spontaneous miscarriage. The timing did not matter: women were at higher risk regardless of whether the pregnancy failed after eight weeks or the child was stillborn.
The study also documented a yearning, a grief that lasted for many months and seemed to stalk the women like some shadow of the lost child, Dr. Neugebauer said. A number of women patted their bellies as if they were still pregnant; others would see children on the street, strangers, and have a sudden, visceral sensation: “That’s my child.”
Read more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/health/10miscarriage.html?src=me&ref=h...