Mothers experiences with still birth: a dead fetus as a’tax’ given to allah: qualitative phenomenological study
- International Journal of Pregnancy & Child Birth
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Dawit Tiruneh, Agezegn Asegid
Abstract
Introduction: The months of excitement and expectation and planning magnifying the devastating incomprehension of giving birth to a baby bearing no signs of life. Stillbirth has been recognized as one of the most neglected areas of public health while millions of
women are suffering from aftermath of its occurrence. Exploring root causes of malpractice, myth, attitude and misperception helps to focus on meaningful, contextual and evidenced based interventions. However there is no any documented research specifically addressing experience of mother with still birth in the study area.
Objective: The aim of this study is to explore mothers’ lived experiences related to still birth Method and materials: Qualitative study design with hermeneutic phenomenological approach was conducted in Eastern Ethiopia, January 2019. The snow ball sampling
technique was used to pick and interview four mothers who had delivered still birth in the last 12 months using local language. Nvivo version 11 software and steps of Colaizzi’s were used for data analysis after members were checked the congruence of given report and thematized results.
Findings: the data were saturated at four in-depth interview and emerged themes were: ‘Shanfa’: a fetus as a tax given to God, ‘Allatti’: a shadow of a bird as cause for fetal death,‘Mijawiru’: getting offensive nick name, Feeling accused to happiness, ‘Mana Kitaaba’
as a prevention or treatment, powerlessness on self-determination, Challenge in getting facilities, being fatigue and ignorance, Oxygen Hunger in ambulance, and Partner support.
Conclusion and recommendations: There are lots of unspeakable myth and challenges that a specific mother are experiencing due to still birth. Some are helpful for better coping and some are hiding issue from getting proper attention and management. As part of globaland national response to perinatal mortality, mothers experience need to be explored with multi-site, high tech investigation to identify problem and make proper planning to solve the challenges.
Keywords
still birth, lived experience, phenomenology, qualitative, perinatal loss, fetal death