Men Coping with Miscarriage: How Spousal Emotional Support Contributes to the Relationship between Parenting Identity and Well-Being about Pregnancy Loss

ABSTRACT

Although miscarriage is commonly considered a “women’s issue,” pregnancy loss often occurs in opposite-sex marriages and affects the well-being of both spouses. The present study investigated how cisgender married men (n= 136) coped with their spouse’s miscarriage by drawing upon their parenting role salience (i.e., commitment to and value in their parenting identity) and spousal emotional support as coping resources. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that parenting role salience negatively predicted positive and negative affect about the miscarriage, which negatively predicted perceived stress. In other words, men who invested in their role as a father coped better with miscarriage. Moderation analyses revealed husbands who received higher quality spousal emotional support reported better well-being, regardless of their parenting role salience. These results highlight the importance of considering identity in the support and coping process. Findings also inform practical applications by attending to both partners’ grief and relational needs following a miscarriage.

KEY WORDS:

• marital communication
• social support
• miscarriage
• parenting identity
• well-being

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Participants without living children (n= 60) were eliminated from the current sample in order to account for the distinct differences in parenting identity for those with and without living children.

2. T-tests comparing those who had experienced miscarriage less than five years ago versus more than five years ago were non-significant for parenting role salience, negative affect, and perceived stress. There was a marginal significant difference in positive affect at a 0.20 mean difference.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Missouri Alumni Association's Richard Wallace Faculty Incentive Grant.