1 Way OR Nurses Can Lend Emotional Support After Miscarriages

Taking time to grieve is important for any loss, but it’s not always a simple process for parents experiencing a miscarriage who may struggle with how to mourn for an unborn child.

“Regardless of gestational age or circumstance, parents had plans and dreams for their baby and that’s been taken away,” said Sue Kehoe, BS, RN, CNOR, a perioperative nurse at Virtua Health in Voorhees, NJ. “Perioperative nurses can help patients acknowledge this loss as an important part of helping them heal physically and emotionally.”

With a big OB/GYN population at her hospital, post-miscarriage procedures are unfortunately seen a lot. Preparing moms and dads for this surgery so soon after their loss often put Kehoe and her nurse colleagues in a position to provide bereavement support—but they weren’t always sure how.

“OR nurses tend to do things automatically and are always in a rush to get cases done to keep our rooms running on schedule, and this can come across as a little cold with grieving parents,” Kehoe said.

How to Show You Care

Seeking a consistent way to acknowledge the pain they witnessed moms and dads feeling, Kehoe researched miscarriage bereavement and led an initiative to standardize Caring for Parents Experiencing Miscarriage, which she presented as a poster at AORN Expo last April.

To help other nursing teams create an approach for miscarriage bereavement support, Kehoe shared the two-step process on how they put this plan together and trained nurses to start the conversation with parents:

• First, she sought out an appropriate keepsake for parents to help acknowledge their lost child. She found a woman on Pinterest who creates knitted booties for grieving parents and was honored to partner with Kehoe. The booties come in a little satchel with this saying:

“How very softly you tiptoed into our world almost silently only a moment you stayed, but what an imprint your footsteps have left upon our hearts.” By Dorothy Ferguson.

Whether or not to offer the keepsake is up to the individual nurse. Kehoe said some women (especially early on) will pass on the keepsake; however, they find most parents are receptive and appreciative.

• Next, Kehoe led a simple training to introduce the keepsakes and share some of the bereavement research she found specific to miscarriage, such as making sure to also acknowledge dads who are often forgotten during this time. Although it can be difficult to start this conversation with parents, she said the more you do it, the more comfortable you become.

And sometimes, simply offering a keepsake can be enough. This small gesture “allows us to spend a little more time with the patient to let them know we care and understand that this baby mattered,” Kehoe said.

Your Virtual Expo pass gives you access to Kehoe’s poster and other valuable practice info from the annual meeting to refine patient support.