Experiences of midwifery students in caring for pregnancy loss. A phenomenological study

To analyze the experiences of midwifery students in the care of pregnancy loss during their training.

The care of pregnancy losses requires the acquisition of very specific non-technical skills by midwifery students. The training received by students about gestational grief requires the use of different methodologies to obtain the required skills. The experiences of midwifery students with perinatal loss during their training highlight gaps in the development of non-technical skills needed to address such situations effectively DESIGN: A qualitative study was conducted with an interpretative phenomenological approach.

Individual, in-person semi-structured interviews were conducted in March 2024. The sample was composed of 9 midwifery students enrolled in their first and second academic years, who were being trained at a hospital in the south of Spain. An inductive analysis was performed through the identification of recurring patterns, ideas, and concepts in the data. After the construction of the categories, and their relationship between themselves, the results were returned to the participants and the results were confirmed.

Three main themes were identified: (1) Exposure to or Experiences of perinatal loss in practice, (2) Influence of the emotional impact on the development of skills, (3) Shortcomings in Formal Training and the Influence of Tutoring on Addressing Pregnancy Loss.

The participants' experiences reflect the awareness of the importance of perinatal loss in Western society. This awareness reveals the deficiencies in formal teaching, resulting in negative emotions and difficulties in the management of these situations in the students.