Missed miscarriage is a form of pregnancy loss in which the child dies, while the body may continue to show no clear signs that the pregnancy has ended. This study explored women’s lived experiences of missed miscarriage and the meanings that loss acquires in relation to the body, grief, motherhood, healthcare experiences, and life after loss.
The qualitative study included ten women who had experienced a missed miscarriage. Their narratives were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The findings revealed considerable individuality in women’s experiences, while also identifying several shared dimensions. A particularly important aspect was the temporal separation between the death of the child and the physical end of the pregnancy, meaning that a woman could already know about the loss while her body continued to show signs of pregnancy. Women’s relationships with their bodies varied, ranging from diminished trust in the body to an experience of the body as capable of carrying out the process of loss in its own way. Access to information, sufficient time, and the opportunity to participate in decisions regarding further care also emerged as important aspects of their experiences.
Grief did not follow a uniform timeline, and the relationship with the deceased child did not necessarily end with the child’s death. Participants maintained this bond in different ways and also differed in how they experienced motherhood after loss. Responses from healthcare professionals and significant others played an important role in their experiences. Compassion, acknowledgement of the loss, and adequate information were experienced as meaningful forms of support, whereas impersonal care, minimisation of the loss, and a tendency to approach it primarily as a medical event could intensify distress. For some participants, the loss also affected subsequent pregnancies, motherhood, their relationship with mortality, and their experiences of faith, spirituality, and meaning.
The findings demonstrate that missed miscarriage cannot be understood solely as a medical event. The same medical diagnosis may encompass highly diverse lived experiences, highlighting the importance of individualised, informed, and compassionate care that allows each woman to define the meaning of her loss in accordance with her own experience.
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