gms | German Medical Science

Background: Miscarriages occur at a rate of 10–30% of all clinically recognized pregnancies. Miscarriage continues to be a rare event for society [1]. Therefore, affected women experience little support from their environment [2]. After a Miscarriage, the risk of mental illness increases [3]. Women who experience a miscarriage express feelings of guilt, shame and self-doubt [1]. The care for women with miscarriage belongs to the midwife area of operation in Germany. This is anchored in SGB V in paragraphs 24c and 134a.

Aim: The aim of this work is to present care requests of women with miscarriage and to derive recommendations for action for midwives.

Method: This bachelor thesis is a topic-based literature work. The research took place in the period from January to June in 2019. The databases PubMed and Cochrane Library were searched for suitable literature. In addition, various library catalogs were searched for suitable literature. Literature that was available in Germen or English was included for the bachelor thesis. Excluded was literature that deals explicitly with the subject of stillbirth. For the result section of the thesis, 13 studies and topic-relevant surveys could be identified and used.

Results: To adequately support women with miscarriage, it is important to know their care needs. Affected women are requested to have a sensitive and emotional care with recognition of the loss [4]. It has also been shown that women need time to process the miscarriage diagnosis and plenty of information about it [5]. Support during and after miscarriage plays an important role [2]. Awareness of society is also important for those affected in the future [2], [4]. Recommendations for action for midwives can be derived by the identified care requests of the women.

Relevance: An increased incidence of miscarriages is expected in the coming years. Amongst other things reasons are the increasing maternal age as well as reproductive medicine. The care of women with miscarriage is legally the responsibility of midwives and that’s the reason why the topic is extremely relevant to midwives in Germany.

Conclusion: Currently, only a few women in Germany have a midwife care in the context of miscarriage. But professional support by health professions is desired by those affected. Due to the increased risk of mental illness after a miscarriage, setting up a low-threshold care provision for women with miscarriage for the future seems necessary.

Ethics and conflicts of interest: No vote on ethics was obtained. The research was financed by own resources. There are no conflicts of interest.

The PDF file of the poster submitted for the meeting is available in German as Attachment 1 [Attach. 1].