Effect of Sustaining a Perinatal Loss: Mothers’ Mental Health and Marital Satisfaction

Effect of Sustaining a Perinatal Loss: Mothers’ Mental Health and Marital Satisfaction

Akhtar M; Khalid B

Illness, Crisis and Loss

2024

Mental Health; Mothers; Female; Descriptive Statistics; Human; Questionnaires; Bereavement; Psychological Well-Being; Psychosocial Factors; United States; Pregnancy; Child; Emotions; Grief; Infant; Evaluation; Perinatal Death; Scales; Attitude to Death; Counselors; Cross Sectional Studies; Gynecologists; Infant Death; Marital Satisfaction; Quantitative Studies; Snowball Sample

Abstract The occurrence of perinatal losses is an unfortunate, yet common degeneracy that implements perturbing taxation on the mental, emotional, and marital health of mothers considering the grief they impose. This study is a quantitative venture that utilizes psychometrically sound measures such as the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale (KMSS), the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF), and calibrated excerpts from the Perinatal Grief Scale (PGS). By addressing mothers (n = 53) who had recently undergone pregnancy losses, infant deaths, or during-birth child demises—significant links were established among the facets taken into consideration. Findings revealed that both mental health (r = −.48, p < .01) and marital satisfaction (r = −.34, p < .05) significantly deteriorated as an aftermath of the grief inculcated by sustaining the loss. Dimensions of mental health, in the form of emotional, social, and psychological well-being, all followed suit and underwent plunges mediated by the instigated bereavement. Further differences in both mental health and marital satisfaction were evident among participants who had children other than the ones lost to demise, and those who did not. Findings are helpful for mental health practitioners, family counselors, and gynecologists when dealing with such clients.

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