Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to show how global health research, public policy interventions as well as community groups’ claims have actively participated in the refining of the categories of stillbirth and bereaved parents. This process made unintended consequences on the wellbeing of those they are designed to benefit.

Paper long abstract:

The point I am making is that the definition and classification of stillbirth have real and unintended consequences, some of which participate in what Ian Hacking calls the «looping effect» of human classification. I illustrate my point with data from Quebec in relation to the emergence of stillbirth as a global health issue. My analysis shows the following looping effect. The definition of «stillbirth» in opposition to that of «live birth» contributes to the classification of human/non human. In Quebec, the product of stillbirth is not considered a human being. Yet, three global changes have occurred in the past decades about stillbirth and bereaved parents. 1) Between 1990-2000 the basic hospital's strategy facing a stillbirth has moved from shielding parents to supporting them. 2) Between 2000-2010 the «virtual community pregnancy loss support group» gradually grew in importance. 3) The Lancet Journal in 2011 and the following WHO 2014 Every newborn action plan, made stillbirth a global health issue priority. Since 2008, these changes led Quebec public health authorities to consider perinatal mourning as a public problem. In 2012, a public petition requested a paternity leave following perinatal death. Still, no birth and no death certificates are issued following a stillbirth in Quebec. «Bereaved parents» remain a contradiction in terms, with new problems. My analysis is based on long term research on data produced both by medical boards and public health authorities, as well as on open data from a website of parents having experienced such losses.