Access to this article is restricted until 12 months after publication by request of the publisher.. Restriction lift date: 2022-01-07
Maternity healthcare chaplains and perinatal post-mortem support and understanding in the United Kingdom and Ireland: An exploratory study
Loading...
Files
Date
2021-01-07
Authors
Nuzum, Daniel
Fitzgerald, B.
Evans, M. J.
O'Donoghue, Keelin
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Published Version
Abstract
Perinatal autopsy rates have declined significantly in recent decades. There is a lack of consensus concerning the potential religious influences for bereaved parents in their decision making process for post-mortem. This online study of British and Irish maternity healthcare chaplains explored their understanding of general and local perinatal post-mortem procedures and their experiences in the support of parents. Participants included Christian, Muslim and non-faith chaplains. No chaplain identified any religious prohibition to perinatal post-mortem. A majority of chaplains reported that they had been asked about post-mortem by parents; only a minority felt adequately prepared. A key recommendation is that following appropriate training chaplains may be well placed to support colleagues and parents during the decision making process.
Description
Keywords
Post-mortem , Autopsy , Chaplaincy , Bereavement , Stillbirth , Perinatal
Citation
Nuzum, D., Fitzgerald, B., Evans, M. J. and O'Donoghue, K. (2021) 'Maternity healthcare chaplains and perinatal post-mortem support and understanding in the United Kingdom and Ireland: An exploratory study', Journal of Religion and Health. doi: 10.1007/s10943-020-01176-4
Collections
Copyright
© 2021, the Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC part of Springer Nature. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Journal of Religion and Health. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10943-020-01176-4