The experience of men after miscarriage

Stephanie Dianne Rose, Purdue University

Abstract

Miscarriage is a relatively common event that occurs in approximately 15 to 20 percent of identified pregnancies (Maker & Ogden, 2003). Men and women often view miscarriage as a real and meaningful loss (Johnson & Puddifoot, 1996; McCreight, 2004). The vast majority of research focused on the experience of miscarriage has emphasized the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of women (Conway & Russell, 2000; McCreight, 2004). However, minimal research exists focused on men’s experience after miscarriage (Rinehart & Kiselica, 2010). The present phenomenological study examined the experience of men after miscarriage including aspects such as responses (e.g., emotions and behaviors), coping, meaning-making, and perspectives of masculinity and gender roles. Data were collected through individual, in-person, interviews with nine men affected by miscarriage. Men also completed two measures examining their perspectives on masculinity and gender roles. I organized the data that were represented by all participants into five superordinate themes: men’s emotional and behavioral expressions, men’s views of their partners’ emotional and cognitive expressions, coping, meaning reconstruction, and men’s perspectives on masculinity and gender roles. The present study revealed certain significant and unique insights into men’s experience following miscarriage including diversity of response, diversity of partner response, coping, meaning-making, and views of masculinity and gender roles. Most men found that supporting their partners helped facilitate, rather than hindered, their own responses and coping. Most participants appeared accurately attuned to their partners’ experiences. Unlike the results of prior research studies, the majority of participants did not report relationship conflict (i.e., related to miscarriage) with their partners. Additionally, all participants participated in meaning-making activities to help them to make sense of, find benefit from, and reconstruct their understanding of themselves and their worlds. The results of the present study offer implications for the fields of thanatology and counseling psychology, including the recognition of the unique and diverse responses that men experience, factors that may affect men’s responses (i.e., views on masculinity and gender roles), men’s interactions with their partners, ways that men cope, and types of meaning reconstruction activities. Limitations of the study were in the areas of sampling, research paradigm, and research design.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Servaty-Seib, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Medicine|Counseling Psychology|Developmental psychology

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