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Healthcare professionals can powerfully influence how women experience pregnancy loss. However, such professionals often work with professional and cultural assumptions of how women should respond to pregnancy loss and fail to provide their patients with sensitive and appropriate emotional care. In this study, the authors used Charmaz' constructionist grounded theory, a qualitative approach, to generate and analyze interviews of eight participants with different familial and socioeconomic backgrounds. It was found that the meaning that the pregnancy had for women varied according to the different familial and socioeconomic systems within which they operate. The meaning of the pregnancy not only determined the meaning of the pregnancy loss, but also impacted on the participants' emotional needs at the time of loss. Feelings about pregnancy loss ranged from feelings of devastation to relief.

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