TY - JOUR
T1 - Congenital loss
T2 - Loss of an immediate family member prior to or during one’s birth
AU - Mahat Shamir, Michal
AU - Pitcho-Prelorentzos, Shani
AU - Leichtentritt, Ronit D.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - The loss of a family member is often conceptualized as a disruption in one’s life story. However, when a loss occurs prior to, or during, one’s birth, the bereaved life stories are not interrupted by the loss, but rather begin with loss. The paper offers a new conceptualization of these losses as “congenital losses” and captures the core aspects of this phenomenon. A qualitative phenomenological analysis of 34 in-depth semi-structured interviews with offspring and siblings whose family members died before/during their birth revealed four main challenges presented by congenital loss: incoherency and fragmentation; story-ownership; bond-establishment, and; identity challenges.
AB - The loss of a family member is often conceptualized as a disruption in one’s life story. However, when a loss occurs prior to, or during, one’s birth, the bereaved life stories are not interrupted by the loss, but rather begin with loss. The paper offers a new conceptualization of these losses as “congenital losses” and captures the core aspects of this phenomenon. A qualitative phenomenological analysis of 34 in-depth semi-structured interviews with offspring and siblings whose family members died before/during their birth revealed four main challenges presented by congenital loss: incoherency and fragmentation; story-ownership; bond-establishment, and; identity challenges.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85141625169&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/07481187.2022.2142328
DO - 10.1080/07481187.2022.2142328
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C2 - 36346806
AN - SCOPUS:85141625169
SN - 0748-1187
VL - 47
SP - 914
EP - 925
JO - Death Studies
JF - Death Studies
IS - 8
ER -