From mourning to memorialising - A lasting connection through remembrance: The role of memory making in preserving the identity of parenthood amongst women who have suffered a perinatal bereavement.

PROBLEM: Perinatal bereavement can severely disrupt women's anticipated role as mothers, affecting their psychological wellbeing and identity as parents.

BACKGROUND

Existing research highlights many women report persistent and enduring grief for months or even years post-loss, highlighting the urgent need for interventions to help maintain a healthy parental identity and mitigate long-term mental health impacts.

AIM: To explore how memory-making practices, supported by compassionate care, serve to preserve the parental identity of bereaved mothers after perinatal loss.

METHODS

Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 54 UK-based women who had experienced a perinatal bereavement. Grounded Theory Analysis guided the inductive coding and thematic development.

FINDINGS: Five themes emerged: (1) Compassion to Care; (2) Finding Comfort in Guidance; (3) Deriving Hope from Parental Identity; (4) Altruism as Catharsis; and (5) Comforted and Consoled. Together, these themes gave rise to the final theory, 'From Mourning to Memorialising - A Lasting Connection through Remembrance,' demonstrating how memory-making enables bereaved mothers to preserve their sense of parenthood after loss.

DISCUSSION: Memory-making activities allow bereaved mothers to acknowledge their baby's existence and uphold their parental identity. When supported by compassionate care and support, these activities help to integrate the baby's memory into daily life, gradually easing acute grief. Over time, they become lasting markers which validate motherhood, foster continuity, and provide solace, ensuring that parenthood endures despite the absence of a living child.

CONCLUSIONS

Structured memory-making and compassionate care strategies can enhance parental identity retention, fostering emotional resilience and guiding more effective bereavement care provision.