An exploration of the experiences of men whose partners have undergone a termination of pregnancy due to fetal abnormality

Whilst most pregnancies will progress with the outcome of a healthy baby, for some, routine prenatal testing may be the first point at which parents realise the pregnancy may not be progressing as expected. Parents may undergo further genetic testing with subsequent results being indicative of there being significant abnormality with the baby. Such parents can be faced with the option to undergo a termination of pregnancy (TOP), which if undertaken can include other procedures such as feticide. Research suggests that for women, the experience of receiving positive-prenatal tests can be extremely distressing. If a TOP has been chosen, this too can prove a traumatic experience. Only a small number of studies have investigated the father's experience of such testing and if chosen, TOP - this research suggests that for fathers too, this can be a traumatic and upsetting experience. The qualitative study presented here was undertaken in order to investigate men's lived experience of partners undergoing a TOP for fetal abnormality and to develop research in this area. Eight men were interviewed whose partners had undergone a termination of pregnancy due to genetic information. A semistructured interview was completed, and audio recorded, with each participant whilst on their own. An interpretative phenomenological analysis was undertaken with the transcribed audio recordings. From this, six super-ordinate themes were developed from the corpus of transcripts. Themes related to variables that can affect the experience of receiving prenatal test results, factors affecting decision-making processes, the role of the participants as 'protector and enforcer', the experiences of the ending of the pregnancy within a medical context, the acknowledgment of the existence of a life, and how men can relate to others during and after experiencing a partner undergoing a TOP for genetic reasons. This study concludes with recommendations for further research and clinical practice