title: Termination of pregnancy for fetal abnormality incompatible with life: women's experiences in Brazil.
abstract: Fetal abnormality incompatible with life is a fact and the options for dealing with it are abortion or birth followed by death. This paper reports a qualitative study of the experience of ten women who had a pregnancy termination in a university hospital in Brazil for fetal abnormality incompatible with life. The women were interviewed approximately 40 days after the procedure. The experience was marked by strong emotions for the women, who had a terrible shock on learning of the diagnosis, which was given between 13 and 25 weeks into their pregnancies. They cried, and experienced fear, despair, anguish, a sense of uselessness and refusal to accept the situation. When they took the decision to terminate their pregnancies, the women experienced sadness, despair and guilt, and all these feelings caused them intense suffering. The killing of the fetus was the most difficult part of the termination for them. Nevertheless, afterwards they were satisfied with the decision taken and believed that it was the correct one, despite the anguish it caused. The inclusion of fetal abnormality incompatible with life in the Brazilian law on pregnancy termination would help to reduce women's suffering and contribute to the provision of supportive care by the health services.
authors.affiliation: School of Medical Sciences, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), São Paulo, Brazil. lucial@unicamp.br
authors.forename: Lúcia de Lourdes
authors.initials: Lde L
authors.lastname: Ferreira da Costa
authors.forename: Ellen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hardy
authors.forename: Maria José
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Duarte Osis
authors.forename: Anibal
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Faúndes
mesh_terms: D000025:Abortion, Eugenic / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology*; D000328:Adult; D001938:Brazil; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D011247:Pregnancy; D036301:Qualitative Research