title: Women's premonitions prior to the death of their baby in utero and how they deal with the feeling that their baby may be unwell.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To identify whether mothers of stillborn babies had had a premonition that their unborn child might not be well and how they dealt with that premonition. Design. A mixed method approach.
  
  
  METHODS
  One thousand and thirty-four women answered a web questionnaire.
  
  
  METHODS
  Six hundred and fourteen women fulfilled the inclusion criteria of having a stillbirth after the 22nd gestational week and answered questions about premonition.
  
  
  METHODS
  Qualitative content analysis was used for the open questions and descriptive statistics for questions with fixed alternatives.
  
  
  METHODS
  The premonition of an unwell unborn baby.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In all, 392 of 614 (64%) of the women had had a premonition that their unborn baby might be unwell; 274 of 614 (70%) contacted their clinic and were invited to come in for a check-up, but by then it was too late because the baby was already dead. A further 88 of 614 (22%) decided to wait until their next routine check-up, believing that the symptoms were part of the normal cycle of pregnancy, and that the fetus would move less towards the end of pregnancy. Thirty women (8%) contacted their clinic, but were told that everything appeared normal without an examination of the baby.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Women need to know that a decrease in fetal movements is an important indicator of their unborn baby's health. Healthcare professionals should not delay an examination if a mother-to-be is worried about her unborn baby's wellbeing.
authors.affiliation: School of Health, Care and Social Welfare, Mälardalen University, Eskilstuna/Västerås.
authors.forename: Kerstin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Erlandsson
authors.affiliation: Institute of Health and Care Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg.|School of Health and Social Science, Dalarna University, Falun.
authors.forename: Helena
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lindgren
authors.affiliation: Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, Lund.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Davidsson-Bremborg
authors.affiliation: Sophiahemmet University College, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Ingela
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Rådestad
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005313:Fetal Death; D005324:Fetal Movement; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D019545:Intuition; D011247:Pregnancy; D011295:Prenatal Care; D050497:Stillbirth / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires