The Supporter Needs Supporting Too: A Qualitative Study to Understand the Maternity Care Experience for Partners Following a Previous Perinatal Death

Background: Birthing mothers are likely to experience high levels of psychological distress in a pregnancy following a perinatal death. However, less is known about the impact of a subsequent pregnancy after perinatal death on partners and their experiences of maternity care. Objective: To explore partners’ maternity care experiences and support needs in a pregnancy following a perinatal death. Design: Qualitative descriptive design. Setting and Participants: Partners attending a specialist antenatal clinic in a UK tertiary maternity service for families who are pregnant following a previous perinatal death. Twenty-seven partners were interviewed antenatally and 21 were interviewed postnatally. Analysis: Data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Results: Two themes described the partners’ experiences: ‘If she's happy, I'm happy’: Feeling supported’ where partners described taking on the role as the supporter to the birthing mother, and Guided ‘…out of the shadows’ where partners expressed the need to feel included in maternity care and to have access to support. Discussion: Maternity care services need to recognise the role of partners as supporters for bereaved mothers, particularly in pregnancy after loss. Many partners do not feel included in maternity care and gender roles encourage men to behave in stereotypical masculine ways which may explain why most do not engage in health seeking behaviour to support their mental health. Conclusions: Support from specialist healthcare professionals at a dedicated pregnancy after loss clinic helps partners to support the birthing mother. Although partners describe symptoms of psychological distress in a subsequent pregnancy, there are no care pathways that provide psychological support to partners. Greater inclusion in maternity care would impact positively on partners’ experience. Training for healthcare professionals to engage in healthcare behaviours would improve the maternity care experience for partners who have experienced perinatal death. Patient or Public Contribution: A patient and public involvement (PPI) group for the study included parents who had lived experience of pregnancy after loss. The PPI group advised on study design and the presentation of participant information. Parents who had lived experience of baby loss and who were service users at a specialist antenatal clinic were interviewed for the study.