Women's premonitions prior to the death of their baby in utero and how they deal with the feeling that their baby may be unwell.

OBJECTIVE

To identify whether mothers of stillborn babies had had a premonition that their unborn child might not be well and how they dealt with that premonition. Design. A mixed method approach.

SETTING

One thousand and thirty-four women answered a web questionnaire.

SAMPLE

Six hundred and fourteen women fulfilled the inclusion criteria of having a stillbirth after the 22nd gestational week and answered questions about premonition.

METHODS

Qualitative content analysis was used for the open questions and descriptive statistics for questions with fixed alternatives.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE

The premonition of an unwell unborn baby.

RESULTS

In all, 392 of 614 (64%) of the women had had a premonition that their unborn baby might be unwell; 274 of 614 (70%) contacted their clinic and were invited to come in for a check-up, but by then it was too late because the baby was already dead. A further 88 of 614 (22%) decided to wait until their next routine check-up, believing that the symptoms were part of the normal cycle of pregnancy, and that the fetus would move less towards the end of pregnancy. Thirty women (8%) contacted their clinic, but were told that everything appeared normal without an examination of the baby.

CONCLUSIONS

Women need to know that a decrease in fetal movements is an important indicator of their unborn baby's health. Healthcare professionals should not delay an examination if a mother-to-be is worried about her unborn baby's wellbeing.