And our patients suffer greatly for it with doubts swirling around the fact that the loss of the fetus was somehow their fault, that something is wrong with their body, or perhaps they are unfit to be parents. We also provide our learners a great disservice when we do not include pregnancy emergencies in the same conversations that we have around palliative care and end of life discussions. We provide our patients a great disservice when do not stop and address the emotional and social aspect of pregnancy emergencies. However, these are deaths of potential, of the future, and death of lives that will never be lived, clothes that will never be worn, and cribs that will forever be unused. Pregnancy related emergencies are still deaths, maybe not in the same physical sense as end of life discussions. Interestingly, rarely does death of the fetus enter into consideration for those topics. RelevanceĬonsider how much emphasis (rightfully so) is placed upon palliative care and end of life discussions. Medical treatment is given, without concern for the emotional consideration for those patients. We see how the doctor floats into their lives like a feather, and leaves no impact as he floats away from them. In the short story “A Temporary Matter” from the book Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, we see two people have their hopes and dreams for their future child crushed during one of these many pregnancy related emergencies that we have learned so well. Follow up the case with discussion of the disposition, and you are off to the next patient.īut wait, is this really all there is to pregnancy related emergencies? Finally which cases are viable and which are not. Then decide which need ultrasound, transabdominal versus transvaginal. Pregnancy related emergencies are easy, right? Simply divide into categories based on trimester, then subdivide into pain categories or presence/absence of vaginal bleeding. There was nothing to indicate that she would not be able to have children in the future.” Shoba would be back on her feet in a few weeks. He smiled in the kindest way it was possible to smile at people known only professionally. The doctor explained that these things happen. “Her placenta had weakened and she’d had a cesarean, though not quickly enough.

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