Explaining Pregnancy Loss: Parents' and Physicians' Attributions

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Abstract
Parents who experience a pregnancy loss desire to know why it happened and frequently adopt causal explanations for it. One-hundred thirty-eight females and fifty-six of their male partners were asked to explain why they believed their spontaneous abortion, fetal or neonatal death, or ectopic pregnancy occurred. Explanations for loss included blaming the mother, physical problems with the mother or fetus, fate, and no explanation. While the participants generally relied on physicians' accounts for the loss, as hypothesized, many adopted a second explanation as well. Physicians' explanations were found to be related to the gestational age of the fetus, although similar effects were not found for the participants' accounts. Participants expressed greater satisfaction when possible reasons for the loss were explained to them and continued to view such accounts as essential even two years after the event. The implications of these findings are discussed.

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