RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access

Mothers ’ accounts of their stillbirth experiences and of their subsequent relationships with their living infant: an interpretative phenomenological analysis A. Meltem Üstündağ – Budak1†, Michael Larkin2†, Gillian Harris2 † and Jacqueline Blissett2* Background: Due to contradictory findings regarding the effects of seeing and holding stillborn infants on women’s worsening mental health symptoms, there is a lack of clear of guidance in stillbirth bereavement care. Although some current research examines this phenomenon we are still not certain of the meaning of such experiences to women and what effects there may be on her subsequent parenting. Thus the present study focuses on the meaning of the stillbirth experience to women and its influence on the subsequent pregnancy and subsequent parenting from the mothers ’ own experiences. Methods: A purposive sample of six women who experienced a stillbirth during their first pregnancy and who then went on to give birth to a living child after a further pregnancy, took part in email interviews, providing rich and detailed experiential narratives about both the stillbirth itself, and their relationship with their living child