Child-Bearing Loss

Other Recommended Resources

Books, Articles and Audiovisual Materials:

Bazelon, Emily.  “A Lot of Hush”  Slate.com, Jan. 20, 2003.

Bazelon, Emily. “Should Pregnant Women Be Warned More of Miscarriage” Slate.com, Jan 21, 2003.

Bazelon, Emily.  “What Doctors--And the Rest of Us—Can Do To Help” Jan 22, 2003.

Berman, Micahel R., MD. Parenthood Lost: Healing the Pain After Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Infant Death. Bergin and Garvey, 2001. 
The first half is poetry written by the doctor and first person account of care givers; the second half is short chapters by physicians about specific medical issues regarding pregnancy loss

Blizzard, D. “Situating Fetoscopy within Medical Literature and Lived Experience: An Opening for Social Analysis.” in A. Saetnan, N. Oudshoorn, and M. Kirejczyk, eds. Bodies of Technology: Women’s Involvement with Reproductive Medicine. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2000. 

Cardin, Nina Beth, Rabbi. Tears of Sorrow, Seeds of Hope: A Jewish Spiritual Companion for Infertility and Pregnancy Loss. Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1999.

Cecil, Rosanne ed. The Anthropology of Pregnancy Loss: Comparative Studies in Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Neonatal Death. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1996.

Connor, J.D.  “Personal or Political Loss?” Is Grief over Miscarriage Inconsistent with pro-choice politics?” compiled on Fraywatch, 2003.

Cote-Arsenault, Denise and R. Marshall. "One Foot In-One Foot Out: Weathering the Storm of Pregnancy After Perinatal Loss" Research in Nursing & Health. 2000; 23:6:473-485.

Cote-Arsenault, Denise, Deborah Bidlack and Ashley Humm. "Women's Emotions and Concerns During Pregnancy Following Perinatal Loss" The American Journal of Maternal Child Nursing. 2001; 26:3:128-134.

Cote-Arsenault, Denise and Dianne Morrison-Beedy. "Women's Voices Reflecting Changed Expectations for Pregnancy after Perinatal Loss" Journal of Nursing Scholarship. 2001; 3:239-244.

Cote-Arsenault, Denise and Mary-T. B. Dombeck. "Maternal Assignment of Fetal Personhood to a Previous Pregnancy Loss: Relationship to Anxiety in the Current Pregnancy" Health Care for Women International. 2001; 22:649-665.

Dubin, Lois C. "Fullness and Emptiness, Fertility and Loss: Meditations on Naomi's Tale in the Book of Ruth" In Reading Ruth: Contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story. Judith A. Kates and Gail Twersky Reimer, eds. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994.

Dubin, Lois C.  "A Ceremony of Remembering, Mourning, and Healing After Miscarriage" Kerem: Creative Explorations in Judaism. 1995-6;  4:67-79.

Hartigan, Patti. “The Kindness of Strangers” Sunday Boston Globe Magazine. August 4, 2002; 10-11, 19-24.

Inhorn, Marcia C. Quest for Conception: Gender, Infertility and Egyptian Medical Traditions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994.  

Kohn, Ingrid and Perry-Lynn Moffitt with Isabelle A. Wilkins. A Silent Sorrow: Pregnancy Loss Guidance and Support for You and Your Family. Second edition. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Kluger-Bell, Kim. Unspeakable Losses: Understanding the Experience of Pregnancy Loss, Miscarriage, and Abortion. New York: Norton, 1998.

Lamb, Sister Jane Marie. Bittersweet...hellogoodbye: A Resource in Planning Farewell Rituals When a Baby Dies. Belleville, Ill.: Charis Communications, 1989.

LaFleur, William R. Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Layne, Linda L. Motherhood Lost: A Feminist Account of Pregnancy Loss in America. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Provides a feminist framework for understanding and responding to pregnancy loss, and an activist agenda for change. Personal accounts of loss published in pregnancy loss support newsletters reveal how the experience of loss has changed in recent years as the result of new reproductive technologies and the abortion debate.

“Unhappy Endings: A feminist reappraisal of the natural childbirth movement from the vantage of pregnancy loss" Social Science and Medicine. 2003; 56:1881-1891.

"Making Memories: Trauma, Choice, and Consumer Culture in the Case of Pregnancy Loss" in Consuming Motherhood Janelle Taylor, Linda Layne, and Danielle Wozniak eds. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003.

"The Search for Community: Tales of Pregnancy Loss in Three Toxically-Assaulted Communities in the US" Women’s Studies Quarterly. Spring/Summer 2001; pp. 25-50.

“Unintended Consequences of New Reproductive and Information Technologies on the Experience of Pregnancy Loss” in Women, Gender and Technology. Sue Rosser, Mary Frank Fox and Deborah Johnson eds.  University of Illinois Press. In press.

"'Your Child Deserves a Name': Names, Naming, and the Meropolitics of Pregnancy Loss" in Tropes of Entanglement: Towards an Anthropology of Names and Naming. eds. Gabriele vom Bruck and Barbara Bodenhorn. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. In press.

Lithwick, Dahlia. “Is Pregnancy the Only Recovery?” Jan 20, 2003.

Lithwick, Dahlia. “A Festival of Ironies” Jan. 21, 2003.

Lithwick Dahlia. “Healing Words” Jan 22, 2003.

Louden, Kathleen. “Seeking support of sisters: Loss of 7 pregnancies prompts book, sparks debate among feminists” Chicago Tribune.  April 9, 2003; 8: 3.

March, Kathryn. "Childbirth with fear" in Mothers & Children: Feminist Analyses and Personal Narratives Susan E. Chase and Mary F. Rogers, eds. pp. 168-173. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001.
Compares the experience of loss in the US and Nepal.

Orenstein, Peggy. “Mourning My Miscarriage” New York Times Sunday Magazine April 20, 2002: 38-41.
Describes her experience of having a miscarriage while doing a story in Japan.

Panuthos, Claudia and Catherine Romeo. Ended Beginnings: Healing Childbearing Losses. Greenwood Press (imprint of Praeger), 1984.  Seventh printing, 2003. 

Sears, William. SIDS: A Parent’s Guide to Understanding and Preventing Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1995.

Sefton, Dru . “The Awkward Nexus of Feminism and Pregnancy Loss” Newhouse News Service.  January 15, 2003.

“There Was a Child.” (1991) Video by Fred Simon in collaboration with Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Available through Fanlight Productions, (800) 937-4113. Interview with an African-American couple who had a miscarriage at 12 weeks then 8 weeks and 11 weeks before having a son; interviews with two Anglo women who had stillbirths—one at 36 weeks due to cord; the other at 42 weeks for no apparent reason.

“When the Bough Breaks.” (1993) Video from Duke University Medical School featureing Dr. Marvin L. Hage teaching medical students how to give patients bad news using the true story of a patient who experienced a stillbirth. Fanlight Productions; 800-937-4113.

Pregnancy After a Loss:

Cote-Arsenault, Denise, Deborah Bidlack and Ashley Humm. "Women's Emotions and Concerns During Pregnancy Following Perinatal Loss" The American Journal of Maternal Child Nursing. 2001; 26(3):128-134.

Cote-Arsenault, Denise and Dianne Morrison-Beedy. "Women's Voices Reflecting Changed Expectations for Pregnancy after Perinatal Loss" Journal of Nursing Scholarship. 2001; (3)239-244.

Cote-Arsenault, Denise and Mary-T. B. Dombeck. "Maternal Assignment of Fetal Personhood to a Previous Pregnancy Loss: Relationship to Anxiety in the Current Pregnancy" Health Care for Women International. 2001; 22:649-665.

Cote-Arsenault, Denise and Nomvuyo Mahlangu. "Impact of perinatal loss on the subsequent pregnancy and self: Women's experiences" Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing. 1999; 23:274-282.

Pregnancy loss in other cultures:

Cecil, Rosanne ed. The Anthropology of Pregnancy Loss: Comparative Studies in Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Neonatal Death. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1996.

Inhorn, Marcia C. Quest for Conception: Gender, Infertility and Egyptian Medical Traditions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994.