Elsevier

Social Science & Medicine

Volume 71, Issue 10, November 2010, Pages 1764-1772
Social Science & Medicine

“These are not good things for other people to know”: How rural Tanzanian women’s experiences of pregnancy loss and early neonatal death may impact survey data quality

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.03.051Get rights and content

Abstract

Little research in low-income countries has compared the social and cultural ramifications of loss in childbearing, yet the social experience of pregnancy loss and early neonatal death may affect demographers’ ability to measure their incidence. Ninety-five qualitative reproductive narratives were collected from 50 women in rural southern Tanzania who had recently suffered infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth or early neonatal death. An additional 31 interviews with new mothers and female elders were used to assess childbearing norms and social consequences of loss in childbearing. We found that like pregnancy, stillbirth and early neonatal death are hidden because they heighten women’s vulnerability to social and physical harm, and women’s discourse and behaviors are under strong social control. To protect themselves from sorcery, spiritual interference, and gossip—as well as stigma should a spontaneous loss be viewed as an induced abortion—women conceal pregnancies and are advised not to mourn or grieve for “immature” (late-term) losses. Twelve of 30 respondents with pregnancy losses had been accused of inducing an abortion; 3 of these had been subsequently divorced. Incommensurability between Western biomedical and local categories of reproductive loss also complicates measurement of losses. Similar gender inequalities and understandings of pregnancy and reproductive loss in other low-resource settings likely result in underreporting of these losses elsewhere. Cultural, terminological, and methodological factors that contribute to inaccurate measurement of stillbirth and early neonatal death must be considered in designing surveys and other research methods to measure pregnancy, stillbirth, and other sensitive reproductive events.

Introduction

The day after being interviewed about her own stillbirth, Hawa found our project interviewer at the mud-walled home of her friend Zuwena in rural Tanzania. Whispering, Hawa explained that she hoped we might take her younger sister Imani to the district hospital, as it was too far to walk and eroded crevasses in the mud roads rendered them impassable by bicycle. “You have transport, and I trust you,” she said. “Please, can you help? I am afraid Imani will die.” Imani was nearly three months pregnant but no one but her husband knew until that morning, when she had suddenly begun hemorrhaging and experiencing abdominal pains. Her husband was away farming, so Imani had gone to her sister Hawa hoping that because Hawa had participated in our maternal health study, she might be able to convince us to help her. Imani lay bleeding on a straw mat on her home’s mud floor. Hawa wrapped khangas (printed cotton cloth) around Imani’s waist to absorb the blood and helped her into our truck. Concerned, our local study driver asked Imani what was wrong. Imani hesitated, then stammered BP (“blood pressure”), the local name for hypertension. Later, the driver asked why she was bleeding. Imani repeated that she had BP, which Hawa corroborated. Why would Imani confide in the interviewer yet hide the truth from our driver? (During follow-up interviews, we learned that Imani had suffered a ruptured fallopian tube from an ectopic pregnancy, her life saved by an emergency salpingectomy.)

Administration of household surveys is the methodological cornerstone of population health research, permitting measurement of events using statistical inference from a sample to a population. Standardized questionnaires offer a fairly reliable, quick, and comparable method for collecting data from many subjects (Stone & Campbell, 1984); however, the trustworthiness of survey findings may be compromised when measuring sensitive events. Concerned about data quality, demographers have critiqued survey design and administration (Stone & Campbell, 1984), and a few have considered methodological challenges in measuring sensitive events including induced abortion (Hammerslough, 1986, Udry et al., 1996). However, surveys generally do not treat pregnancy and pregnancy loss as sensitive events, or consider how perceptions about other sensitive events such as induced abortion could impact disclosure of pregnancy and pregnancy loss. Imani’s strategic disclosure and concealment of her pregnancy and complications in the opening vignette suggest otherwise, but demographic studies have largely ignored the sociocultural context of reproductive events, and few data exist on how accurately surveys capture these events (Erviti, Castro, & Collado, 2004).

Measuring stillbirths—late fetal deaths—is increasingly viewed as critical to reduce the world’s 6 million annual perinatal deaths (Lawn et al., 2005, Lawn et al., 2009, Thatte et al., 2009). Better neonatal death and stillbirth data are necessary to track mortality trends and to inform selection of appropriate interventions, as causes vary by time of death (Darmstadt et al., 2005, Lawn et al., 2009). Yet stillbirths often go uncounted: stillbirths are not routinely reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) and are rarely counted systematically in vital registration systems and population-based surveys (Lawn et al., 2005, Stanton et al., 2006). Current estimates of 3.2–3.3 million annual stillbirths globally are conservative, as stillbirths are thought to be underreported by at least 20–40% in both survey and vital registration stillbirth data used to model these estimates (Lawn et al., 2009, Stanton et al., 2006, WHO, 2006).

Stillbirth is a constructed concept of Western colloquial origin describing late-term fetal deaths; although a stillbirth universally indicates a baby born dead, multiple definitions of stillbirth exist, complicating measurement (Lawn et al., 2009). Distinctions between miscarriage and stillbirth use variable benchmarks in gestational age, birthweight, and body length. In high-income countries, stillbirth rates often include some proportion of early fetal deaths, which the WHO defines as fetuses ≥500 g at birth, or at least 22 completed weeks’ gestation (ICD-10, 1993). Because few countries collect complete or reliable data on early fetal deaths, for international comparability, the WHO recommends reporting only late fetal deaths—fetuses ≥1000 g at birth (if birthweight is available), or at least 28 weeks of gestation or 35 cm body length. If early fetal deaths are included in global estimates, assuming similar rates as in countries with available data, approximately 6 million stillbirths occur annually (Goldenberg, McClure, & Belizan, 2009).

Social and cultural factors also contribute to the hiddenness of perinatal losses (Lawn et al., 2009, WHO, 2005). Stillbirths and neonatal deaths at birth may be difficult to differentiate, particularly if no skilled birth attendant is present (Stanton et al., 2006), gestational age at death may be unknown, and vital status at birth may be assessed and/or documented inaccurately, whether unintentionally or deliberately to facilitate coping or obtain benefits reserved for mothers of a live-born infant (Macfarlane and Mugford, 2000, WHO, 2006).

Especially where vital registration coverage of stillbirth is poor, improved methodologies to measure pregnancy loss and early neonatal deaths are needed to bridge data gaps, especially at the community level (Espeut, 2002, Thatte et al., 2009). Studies to understand local concepts, meanings, and social consequences of pregnancy loss are prerequisite for the development of such methodologies, as context may influence stillbirth enumeration in mortality measurement exercises.

Little social science research has investigated the meaning and impact of pregnancy loss, particularly in low-income countries (Cecil, 1996, Erviti et al., 2004, Layne, 2003). Despite pregnancy and pregnancy loss not being regarded as sensitive events, with pregnancy losses even being called “non-events” in high-fertility, high mortality settings because they are not mourned publicly (Scheper-Hughes, 1992, Stewart and Stotland, 1993), sociocultural issues surrounding pregnancy loss likely contribute to underreporting.

Almost universally, pregnancy is concealed for some or all of gestation. In numerous African and Asian countries, pregnancy concealment shields women from social risks such as gossip, sorcery, and spirit possession, to which women are thought more vulnerable during pregnancy (Chapman, 2005, Savage, 1996, Stokes et al., 2008).

Women’s low social status in many low-resource settings limits their sexual negotiating power and access to education and health care, rendering them vulnerable to victimization, blame, and stigma, especially in reproductive matters. Although induced abortions are often financed and/or coerced by intimate partners or parents, women suffer stigmatizing consequences. This stigma creates a shroud of reproductive secrecy that may contribute to underreporting of unintentional loss. Where childlessness is stigmatized (Inhorn and van Balen, 2003, Kielmann, 1998, Miall, 1986), women may be blamed for poor reproductive outcomes (Savage, 1996, Stewart and Stotland, 1993). Risks and consequences of pregnancy loss are also related to women’s vulnerability to emotional, physical, and sexual intimate partner violence: a WHO study found that half of women in African sites reported experiencing intimate partner violence (Garcia-Moreno, Jansen, Ellsberg, Heise, & Watts, 2006). Studies using Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data have found associations—likely through multiple causal pathways—between spousal violence and increased risk of single and recurrent pregnancy loss (Cameroon) and unwanted pregnancy, induced abortion, and miscarriage (Bangladesh) (Alio et al., 2009, Silverman et al., 2007). Risk of abuse may also increase because of a pregnancy loss. The most vulnerable women appear at greatest risk of pregnancy loss and associated stigma and abuse.

Data from rural India revealed severe underreporting of negative reproductive events in surveys, yet demonstrated that prospective pregnancy identification and community mobilization could improve ascertainment of these events. Compared to a retrospective 1-year pregnancy history survey at baseline, a neonatal health study in Uttar Pradesh documented significantly higher stillbirth (56 versus 27.2/1000 births) and neonatal death rates (84.2 versus 54.2/1000 live births) among the intervention group at endline using prospective pregnancy surveillance (Darmstadt, unpublished data), enhanced by strong community engagement, mobilization and empowerment efforts (Kumar et al., 2008).

These data and the social science literature suggest that sociocultural factors, as well as data collection methodologies, may impact disclosure and measurement of stillbirths in many low-resource settings. To explore and identify these factors, we conducted reproductive narratives in rural southern Tanzania with 50 women who had experienced recent reproductive loss. We describe how pregnancy losses are defined and socially managed. We then identify issues that complicate enumeration in population-based surveys, including differences between biomedical and local categories; abortion-associated stigma that inhibits disclosure of spontaneous losses; social control mechanisms that suppress discourse, grief, and mourning; and methodological considerations that affect disclosure of losses. These findings inform recommendations to improve stillbirth data quality using culturally appropriate measurement strategies.

Section snippets

Methods

We conducted 95 open-ended interviews with 50 women in 7 rural villages of Mtwara and Lindi Regions, Tanzania, who had suffered infertility (inability to conceive for ≥2 years prior to the study despite efforts to conceive; N = 10), miscarriage (spontaneous loss of a pregnancy before 28 completed weeks of gestation; N = 10), stillbirth (a baby born dead at or after 28 completed weeks of gestation; N = 20), or early neonatal death (a baby born alive but who died during the first week of life; N

Results

The 50 respondents, broadly representative of the study area (Armstrong Schellenberg et al., 2008), were predominantly married, Muslim women of Makonde or Mwera ethnicity, with limited formal education (Table 1). Approximately one-quarter had polygamous marriages, and more than one-third had lost multiple pregnancies and/or children.

Discussion

These study findings demonstrate how qualitative research can inform quantitative methodologies to enumerate losses in childbearing (Table 4). The findings reveal that biomedical terms and categories used in surveys may not measure the intended outcome. Surveys designed to measure “miscarriage,” “stillbirth” and “neonatal death” reflect a reliance on constructed Western biomedical categories that do not map neatly onto local categories. That numerous respondents reported one biomedical outcome

Conclusions

The collection of consistent, internationally comparable data on stillbirth and early neonatal deaths is complicated by concealment of pregnancy and pregnancy loss, perceived social risks and mechanisms of social control that discourage discourse about loss, and incommensurability between local and biomedical categories of loss. Particularly in settings like rural Tanzania where home birth is common and “immature” losses are hidden, rates of stillbirths and early neonatal deaths may be much

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Hassan Mshinda, director of the Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), and the social science team and support staff of the Intermittent Preventive Treatment of Malaria in Pregnancy (IPTi) Project at IHI for their field support. Funding for the original research was provided to RA Haws through a J. William Fulbright Foundation Fellowship and endowed funds at Johns Hopkins, including the Wright and Bodian Scholarships. Funding for the writing of this manuscript was provided through an

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