Negotiation of Parenthood and Couplehood after Miscarriage or Stillbirth: Results from the Japanese Cases

• In Event: 500 - Regular Session. Gender in a Global Context

Abstract

Although the number of perinatal mortality rate is low in Japan, MHLW (2015) reported about 3000 cases of miscarriage/stillbirth per year. Because of the idea that women suffer from miscarriage/stillbirth, studies have been focused on the grief processes of women. Researchers recently started to examine the grief processes of men whose partner went through miscarriage/stillbirth. In this research, we approached miscarriage/stillbirth as a couple’s shared life event and conducted 10 interviews with Japanese couples to understand how each member of a couple negotiates and develops the sense of couplehood and parenthood through the experience. We found that women tend to talk about a strong sense of being a mother of the lost child. As a mother, they expressed sorrow and sense of guilt. Women were less likely talk about their identity as a wife during the grieving process. Yet, women started to be aware of their role as a wife when they learned their husband was also suffering from the loss as a father. On the other hand, men tend to be more aware of their role as a husband than father soon after the incident of miscarriage/stillbirth. They expressed the responsibilities to physically and emotionally support their wife. Yet fathers talked about feelings of irritating because they were treated as if they cannot gain firsthand experience of losing a child by hospital staffs, family members, and colleagues. The development of identity as a father emerges especially when men realize that their feelings of loss are understood by their partner.

Author

• Saori Yasumoto, Osaka University