HELPING HEALTH-CARE STAFF DEAL WITH PERINATAL LOSS

Dealing with the psychological issues involved in perinatal loss expos es the medical, nursing, and midwifery staff not only to parents' dist ress but also their own feelings of impotence and frustration. This of ten leads to inadequate management of the situation, which may have lo ng-term deleterious effects on parents and affect staff personally and professionally. Thus, mental health professionals should not only add ress their interventions to parents, but to staff as well, potentiatin g the latter's role as mental health providers. The skills needed for this kind of task involve creativity and flexibility, as well as the c apacity to adapt traditional training to the active participation need ed in dealing with perinatal loss. The present paper is based upon the author's 15 years' experience in consultation/liaison in this field a nd describes the work carried out based on case discussion, group work , and, specially, video-recorded interviews with parents and staff acc ompanied by written material providing guidelines for management.