Abstract
Pregnancy loss continues to occupy an uncomfortable space in public discourse. This article analyses articles in the UK press published between 2013 and 2023 referencing the Baby Loss Awareness Week (BLAW) that focus on narratives of personal experience of pregnancy loss. These narratives sit between the personal and the public, and constitute examples of public grieving that serve a range of purposes, from the expression of continuing bonds with the miscarried or stillborn baby, the desire to share one's experience of loss, and often to the wish to translate this experience into something positive. We draw on Finch's concept of ‘displaying families’, considering how they construct an identity for the baby who never lived and demonstrate continuing bonds with them. By analysing how this ‘identity work’ is made public, we explore how pregnancy loss is presented in public media as a transformative teleological experience for parents.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 841-858 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Illness, Crisis & Loss |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 19 Dec 2024 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Oct 2025 |
Bibliographical note
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Karolina Kuberska is supported by the Health Foundation\u2019s grant to the University of Cambridge for The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Health Foundation |
Keywords
- pregnancy loss
- continuing bonds
- social identity
- grief
- qualitative research