Love and loss. Conversations with parents of babies with spinal bifida managed without surgery, 1971-1981.

Looking back over the span of years surveyed, it appears that a sad experience, even many years ago, commonly leaves residual pain. This can be modified by sympathetic support enabling parents and baby to interact, although such interaction is not without painful as well as pleasurable effects. Coming to terms with loss may take longer than was previously thought. This study highlights the need for bereavement care, which aims to leave families with positive rather than negative feelings. Perhaps, for mental health, the eventual feelings about past happenings are more important than the happenings themselves, although we have also shown that a greater insight into the needs of parents at the time modified their long-term feelings for the good, some even indicating that they had been enriched by the whole experience. The interviews suggested that parents who were involved with their baby's care were more able to accept the reality of their loss and to adjust to the experience of pain and grief than was possible for those who had been kept apart from their children. This supports conclusions by other grief counsellors (e.g. Warden 1983).