Document Type : Original Article
Authors
Department of Critical Care Nursing, Nursing and Midwifery Care Research Center, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Isfshsn University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
Abstract
Introduction: Birth can cause and post‑traumatic stresses in many women even when the
occasion of birth results in alive baby. Fetal death can challenge her understanding of justice
and God’s love toward his creatures. Religious beliefs have a considerable effect on decreasing
individuals’ tendency toward bereavement; thus, it is expected to have a relationship with sorrow
and mental distress ensuing fetal death. The present research has been conducted to review the
existing literature on religion and fetal death and then study Iranian women and their families’
response to such a tragedy. Materials and Methods: This is a unsystematic (narrative) review.
Research was conducted to study the role of mothers’ religious belief in their encounter with
pregnancy loss in cases belonging to a 23‑year period from 1990 to 2013. PubMed and Ovid
databases and Iranian religious resources such as Tebyan were utilized for these studies. Of
course, several articles were also derived by means of manual search. Results: Nine out of
31 papers had the searched keywords in common in the preliminary search. A review of the
existing papers indicated that only 4 out of 22 papers dealt exactly with the role of religion on
reaction of parents to fetal death. The four papers belonged to the years 2008, 2010, 2011, and
2012 indicating the new approach to religion in pregnancy loss cases. Conclusion: Religion
has a significant effect on parents’ acceptance of such mishaps and it may have a considerable
effect on their recovery from such tragic events.
Keywords
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