Is care of stillborn babies and their parents respectful? Results from an international online survey.

Objective: To quantify parents' experiences of respectful care around stillbirth globally.
Design: Multi-country, online, cross-sectional survey.
Setting and Population: Self-identified bereaved parents (n = 3769) of stillborn babies from 44 high- and middle-income countries.
Methods: Parents' perspectives of seven aspects of care quality, factors associated with respectful care and seven bereavement care practices were compared across geographical regions using descriptive statistics. Respectful care was compared between country-income groups using multivariable logistic regression.
Main Outcome Measures: Self-reported experience of care around the time of stillbirth.
Results: A quarter (25.4%) of 3769 respondents reported disrespectful care after stillbirth and 23.5% reported disrespectful care of their baby. Gestation less than 30 weeks and primiparity were associated with disrespect. Reported respectful care was lower in middle-income countries than in high-income countries (adjusted odds ratio 0.35, 95% CI 0.29-0.42, p < 0.01). In many countries, aspects of care quality need improvement, such as ensuring families have enough time with providers. Participating respondents from Latin America and southern Europe reported lower satisfaction across all aspects of care quality compared with northern Europe. Unmet need for memory-making activities in middle-income countries was high.
Conclusions: Many parents experience disrespectful care around stillbirth. Provider training and system-level support to address practical barriers are urgently needed. However, some practices (which are important to parents) can be readily implemented such as memory-making activities and referring to the baby by name.
Tweetable Abstract: One in four experience disrespectful care after stillbirth. Parents want more time with providers and their babies, to talk and memory-make.
(© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)