Do women grieve after terminating pregnancies because of fetal anomalies ? A controlled investigation

Objective: To test the hypothesis that grief responses do not differ between women who terminate their pregnancies for fetal anomalies and women who experience spontaneous perinatal losses. Methods: A case-control study was conducted. Twenty-three women who underwent terminations through the genetics service of a tertiary referral obstetric hospital from January 1991 to April 1992 were assessed psychiatrically 2 months after the termination. The grief responses of these women on the Perinatal Grief Scale and the Beck Depression Inventory were compared to a demographically similar group of women assessed 2 months after they experienced spontaneous perinatal loss. Differences between the groups were assessed through one-way analysis of covariance