The grief ritual of extracting and donating human milk after perinatal loss
Infant; Female; Humans; Infant Mortality; Pregnancy; Perinatal loss; Mothers; Stillbirth; Ceremonial Behavior; Grief; Ambiguous loss; Continuing bonds; Grief rituals; Meaning-making in loss; Milk donation; Milk Banks; Milk Human
Perinatal loss is a major life crisis involving multiple losses, including the loss of future hopes and dreams, of being pregnant, and of self-esteem, to name a few. In the present study I focus on mothers who experienced perinatal loss and chose to extract and donate their human milk to nonprofit milk banks. Through an analysis of 88 women's personal testimonials, collected between 2017 and 2019, I uncover the ritualistic attributes of the extraction and donation process. The bereaved mothers in this study experienced ambiguous loss, comprising the combination of the physical absence and psychological presence of their baby. The process of extracting and donating their milk constitutes a grief ritual, allowing mothers to maintain and reconstruct the continuing bonds with their babies. The present study extends current understandings of organ donation in times of loss, highlighting the unique nature and consequences of the milk donation process through its conceptualization as a grief ritual.
Oreg A
Social Science & Medicine
2020
Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).
<a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113312" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113312</a>
‘Whose Milk Was It, Really? … It Was a Gift, a Savior, a Healer, and a Connector’: Reflections on a Collaborative Autoethnography of Breastmilk Donation after Stillbirth
Collaboration; Bereavement; Grief; Interpersonal Relations; Life Experiences; Infant Death; Perinatal Death; Lactation; Milk Banks; Milk, Human; Donor Milk; Paternal Attitudes; Ethnographic Research; Living Donors; Milk; Milk Ejection
This is the intertwined story of three unique individuals—each of us parents, researchers, givers and takers—who met and changed each other’s lives, whilst simultaneously struggling to comprehend and make meaning out of our own personal losses. After coming to terms with their inability to have another biological child, Shachar and his wife adopted a baby. Ayelet and Alison both gave birth to stillborn babies. Subsequently, Ayelet followed conventional Israeli medical guidelines dictating the drying up of her milk, whilst Alison rejected those regulations and chose to continue lactating, which eventually led to her donating her milk to Shachar’s adopted baby. Our stories are grounded in the patriarchal Israeli context that pressures bereaved individuals to ‘move on’ quickly, silencing loss and grief (Leichtentritt et al., 2016). In this reflective piece, we propose a perspective on our interconnected story of human milk donation as a counter-practice to silencing loss, by allowing shared relational grief. [...]
Timor-Shelvin S; Oreg A; Perez AS
British Journal of Social Work
2023
Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).
<a href="http://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcad025" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">10.1093/bjsw/bcad025</a>