The context and long-term impacts of multiple birth loss: a peer support network perspective.
Following my own experience with the death of a twin baby, I founded the Center for Loss in Multiple Birth (CLIMB) Inc. During the last 13 years I have worked with nearly 7000 bereaved parents of twins, triplets or other high multiples throughout the US and worldwide. The role of a peer support organisation and the range of families with multiples who have contacted it is described. They come from diverse backgrounds with many forms of bereavement: death during pregnancy, at birth or after of both or all babies, of one twin, of one or more higher order multiples; multifetal pregnancy reduction or selective fetocide; the death of one or more multiples in childhood. Some have had more than one multiple pregnancy and loss. Many are concerned for the surviving children. A peer support organisation has an important role to play in increasing public awareness of the needs of these families as well as influencing policy on infertility treatments that carry a high risk of producing multiple pregnancies with the associated risk of death and disability for one or more of the babies.
Kollantai
Jean
J
Center for Loss in Multiple Birth (CLIMB), Inc., Anchorage, AK 99509, USA. climb@pobox.olaska.net
D000413:Alaska; D001293:Attitude to Death; D001601:Bereavement; D005260:Female; D005313:Fetal Death; D006801:Humans; D007226:Infant Mortality; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D010379:Peer Group; D011247:Pregnancy; D011272:Pregnancy, Multiple; D012944:Social Support