Metaphor analysis as a route to understanding and validating experiences of pregnancy loss in England and in France

Perinatal bereavement is one of the most difficult types of grief to live with, but also the least talked about. In many European languages, the absence of a lexicalized term for babies who died prematurely and their parents is a testament to the stigma that still largely surrounds perinatal death, making it difficult not only to identify, but also to recognize those who have experienced it. In the context of perinatal death, the identification of new terms for parents and their deceased babies affirms the reality of their state of grief, which may prove beneficial in addressing the invisibility of perinatal loss and helping to prevent cases of dysfunctional grief, as advocated by the hypostasis theory.

This article addresses the question of the designation in French of the bereaved and their deceased babies. To address this question, we conducted a survey based on administered questionnaires
to a total of 181 bereaved parents (88 men, 91 women and 2 blank forms). Parents' responses are analyzed using three different methods: descriptive analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), and Item Response Theory (IRT) analysis. The descriptive analysis reveals a strong consensus among bereaved parents as to which expressions they are most likely to use. The exploratory factor analysis highlights three significant groups in their responses, which represent three underlying semantic traits: (i) metaphorical terms, (ii) more conventional expressions of grief, and (iii) terms referring to absence or loss. The IRT analysis links these trends to sociodemographic variables (such as age, sex, involvement in self-help groups, religion, etc.) that influence the choice of one lexical training over another.