Untimely Death: Perinatal Loss and Its Perishable Materiality

k 2017

Untimely Death: Perinatal Loss and Its Perishable Materiality

ŠMÍDOVÁ, Iva

Basic information

Original name

Untimely Death: Perinatal Loss and Its Perishable Materiality

Name in Czech

Špatně načasovaná smrt: perinatální ztráta a její pomíjivá hmatatelnost

Authors

ŠMÍDOVÁ, Iva

Edition

Death and Time Symposium of the Death, Dying and Bereavement Study Group (British Sociological Association), 2017

Other information

Language

English

Type of outcome

Prezentace na konferencích

Field of Study

50000 5. Social Sciences

Country of publisher

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Confidentiality degree

není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství

References:

Symposium program

Keywords (in Czech)

perinatální ztráta; smrta a čas; sociologická reflexe

Keywords in English

perinatal loss; death and time; sociological reflection

Abstract

ORIG CZ

V originále

The timing of the loss plays a significant role in the very recognition of humanity and socially legitimate grief for parents experiencing prenatal or perinatal loss. The presentation is based on an ongoing qualitative inquiry (in-depth interviews with representatives of key involved institutions) in the Czech Republic into the practices related to the event (including last rites) with its implications for delimitation of the life itself. The significant clash in authoritative (expert and lay/lived) definitions of the timing of “humanity” (the moment of becoming a human baby – a subject) poses ethical and moral questions on current practices in prenatal and perinatal loss that are relevant for critical social science reflection. Powerful key social institutions form the ground. The Church, biomedicine linked to the legal setting, lived experience of the families affected – they all rely to a varied extent on time in their definitions of “conception” of life, possibility to “die” and in consequent care. The untimely loss is viewed and interpreted very differently depending on whether they situate humanity to the moment of conception of the egg and the sperm in case of the Church, follow the legal definition informed by biomedical practice measuring and calculating gestation weeks and weigh etc. demarcating a miscarriage of a foetus (or a cluster of cells regarded as human waste) or a birth of a (stillborn) child, the legal possibility to die only when there was the first breath etc. Yet, there is also a set of parental perceptions of their baby-to-be human existence, thus setting their own understandings of time in relation to human life and death.

In Czech

(Abstrakt v češtině nebyl vytvořen.)

Links

GA17-02773S, research and development project

Name: Perinatální ztráta - případová studie

Investor: Czech Science Foundation, Perinatal Loss - A Case Study

Citovat

ŠMÍDOVÁ, Iva. Untimely Death: Perinatal Loss and Its Perishable Materiality. In Death and Time Symposium of the Death, Dying and Bereavement Study Group (British Sociological Association). 2017.

@proceedings{1400220,
   author = {Šmídová, Iva},
   booktitle = {Death and Time Symposium of the Death, Dying and Bereavement Study Group (British Sociological Association)},
   keywords = {perinatal loss; death and time; sociological reflection},
   language = {eng},
   title = {Untimely Death: Perinatal Loss and Its Perishable Materiality},
   url = {https://www.britsoc.co.uk/media/24529/ddb2017_prog.pdf},
   year = {2017}
}

TY  - CONF
ID  - 1400220
AU  - Šmídová, Iva
PY  - 2017
TI  - Untimely Death: Perinatal Loss and Its Perishable Materiality
KW  - perinatal loss
KW  - death and time
KW  - sociological reflection
UR  - https://www.britsoc.co.uk/media/24529/ddb2017_prog.pdf
N2  - The timing of the loss plays a significant role in the very recognition of humanity and socially legitimate grief for parents experiencing prenatal or perinatal loss. The presentation is based on an ongoing qualitative inquiry (in-depth interviews with representatives of key involved institutions) in the Czech Republic into the practices related to the event (including last rites) with its implications for delimitation of the life itself. The significant clash in authoritative (expert and lay/lived) definitions of the timing of “humanity” (the moment of becoming a human baby – a subject) poses ethical and moral questions on current practices in prenatal and perinatal loss that are relevant for critical social science reflection. Powerful key social institutions form the ground. The Church, biomedicine linked to the legal setting, lived experience of the families affected – they all rely to a varied extent on time in their definitions of “conception” of life, possibility to “die” and in consequent care. The untimely loss is viewed and interpreted very differently depending on whether they situate humanity to the moment of conception of the egg and the sperm in case of the Church, follow the legal definition informed by biomedical practice measuring and calculating gestation weeks and weigh etc. demarcating a miscarriage of a foetus (or a cluster of cells regarded as human waste) or a birth of a (stillborn) child, the legal possibility to die only when there was the first breath etc. Yet, there is also a set of parental perceptions of their baby-to-be human existence, thus setting their own understandings of time in relation to human life and death.
ER  -

ŠMÍDOVÁ, Iva. Untimely Death: Perinatal Loss and Its Perishable Materiality. In \textit{Death and Time Symposium of the Death, Dying and Bereavement Study Group (British Sociological Association)}. 2017.

Detailed Information on Publication Record