Grief paper Essays - Health, Grief, Abortion, Motherhood

Grief paper Essays - Health, Grief, Abortion, Motherhood Grief Support for Families Experiencing Miscarriage This research paper is to inform the reader about grief support for families experiencing miscarriage. A miscarriage, also known as a spontaneous abortion, is the loss of a pregnancy from natural causes before the 20th week of pregnancy CITATION Mis13 \l 1033 ("Miscarriage", 2013) . Approximately one in five known pregnancies ends in miscarriage CITATION Lim10 \l 1033 (Limbo, Kobler, Levang, 2010) . Vaginal bleeding is the most common complaint that brings pregnant women to the emergency department. One of the most common causes of vaginal bleeding during early pregnancy is spontaneous abortion CITATION EmegerencyNursing \l 1033 (Evanovich Zavotsky, Mahoney, Keeler, Eisenstein, 2013) . Families experiencing miscarriage often move through the same stages of grief as one experiencing the death of a loved one. Mothers in particular often report high levels of anxiety and identify the loss as a baby, not just a fetus (E vanovich Zavotsk y et al. , 2013) . Miscarri age is often accompanied by many emotions such as emptiness and extreme sadness . Many women are concerned that they will not be able to become pregnant again or are worried about the possibility of experiencing another miscarriage CITATION And11 \l 1033 (Andersson, Nilsson, Adolfsson, 2011) . Part of the nurses role is to help patients and thei r families cope with their loss. Nurses should be able to provide emotional support as well as the appropriate teaching to help their patients grieve (Evanovich Zavotsk y et al. , 2013) . T his research paper will review the nursing process and an example case study to demonstrate the nurse ' s role in providing grief support to patients experiencing miscarriage. The case study is presented in the following paragraph. Marie, a 28 year old female presents to the emergency room with her husband. She is complaining of vaginal bleeding, severe abdominal pain, and severe cramping. Marie is currently 17 weeks pregnant and this is her first pregnancy. The emergency room nurse takes Marie back to a room and takes a set of vital signs . Marie tells the nurse that she is bleeding so bad she is currently going through one pad an hour. The doctor ordered an ultrasound of the uterus to help confirm his diagnosis of a miscarriage ("How do Health Care Providers Diagno se Pregnancy Loss" , 2012) . On her way to the ultrasound, Marie was crying and expressed her concerns to the nurse. She stated she was worried that there was something wrong with her baby boy whom she'd already named Matthew. Upon return from the ultrasound the doctor entered the room to tell Marie and her husband that she was indeed having a miscarriage. When the doctor left the nurse went in to see how Ma rie was doing. Marie was crying. S he told the nurse that she had lost her baby boy. Marie told the nurse that she felt she had done something wrong and caused the death of her baby. Marie stated that since her body was not able to successfully complete the pregnancy there must be something wrong with her and that it was her fault. Women experiencing miscarriage "will many times assume responsibility for it" and feel guilty because "it was their body that did not successfully complete the pregnancy to term", making the miscarriage their fault (Ander sson, Nilsson, Adolfsson, 2011, p. 263 ) . Marie also states that she feels worthless because her body is not doing what it is supposed to do. She says she has always wanted a baby and doesn't know what she will do if she is never able to have a child. With these statements the nurse identifies a nursing diagnosis for Marie. The nurse forms a nursing diagnosis of grieving related to the negative effects and losses secondary to death as evidence by patient crying and expressing feel ings of guilt and worthlessness CITATION Car13 \l 1033 (Carpenito, 2013) . After determining the nursing diag nosis the nurse then goes on to develop goals for Marie to help provide grief support after the diagnosis of her miscarriage. For some people, miscarriage is "the loss of a wished-for child, imbued