Sensemaking and Coping After Pregnancy Loss

Abstract

Emotional validation describes when one believes that their activities, emotions, beliefs, or other reactions are relevant and meaningful given the circumstance. When people experience distressing, stigmatizing life events, their state of emotional validation and thus their perceived sense of normalcy is often disrupted. Online spaces offer opportunities for coping, managing, and making sense of distress and stigma. In this paper, we focus on pregnancy loss as the context of inquiry and as an important example of a disruptive experience that is also associated with stigma. We examine how online spaces help facilitate or disrupt the process of achieving emotional validation among pregnancy loss survivors. We conducted in-depth interviews with women in the United States who had recently experienced a pregnancy loss. We found that individuals seeking a sense of perceived normalcy after pregnancy loss engage in two forms of validation processes that result in emotional validation - informational and experiential. We identified encounters that disrupt the process of seeking, achieving, and maintaining emotional validation related to: information, designs, algorithms, and interpersonal interactions. We introduce the concept of algorithmic symbolic annihilation to describe the representational and emotional harm participants experienced when they felt they were targets of algorithms assuming that all desired pregnancies proceed as expected. Algorithmic symbolic annihilation refers to how algorithms perpetuate normative and stereotypical narratives about phenomena, where what they account for has power and authority, and what they do not account for does not. To aid in seeking, achieving and sustaining emotional validation among pregnancy loss survivors, we suggest designing for 1) representational belonging to combat symbolic annihilation and 2) information avoidance.

Women’s use of online health and social media resources to make sense of their polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) diagnosis: a qualitative study

“…Our participants either began or continued their general PCOS search by accessing evidence-based medical websites. Supporting prior research (e.g., [ 36 , 42 , 43 , 58 ]), we found our participants utilising both evidence-based medical information and experiential information through online social support networks, to better understand their condition. Where experiential information was thought to be unreliable, medical evidence-based information was used to check its veracity.…”

“…This study extends prior work on women’s information-seeking relating to PCOS [ 28 , 30 ], their need to establish what is normal for them [ 57 ], and the broader literature on health information-seeking, sense-making and finding a “new normal” based on information-seeking [ 36 – 41 , 43 , 44 , 58 , 59 ]. Working at the intersection of these three themes, this study has identified health information-seeking and sense-making behaviours being applied across a spectrum for PCOS.…”

Better safe than sorry: Exploring the collective sensemaking process in pregnancy virtual communities through thematic analysis

“…In the context of virtual communities and pregnancy loss, previous research (Andalibi & Garcia, 2021) has shown that individuals turn to online spaces to process their grief experiences and connect with others who can relate to their situation. These virtual communities have been found to facilitate a collaborative process of sensemaking, allowing individuals to collectively make sense of their situation (Mamykina et al, 2015; Young & Miller, 2019).…”

“…These virtual communities have been found to facilitate a collaborative process of sensemaking, allowing individuals to collectively make sense of their situation (Mamykina et al, 2015; Young & Miller, 2019). For individuals coping with pregnancy loss, virtual communities offer valuable support and empathy when in‐person support may be limited or inaccessible (Andalibi & Garcia, 2021). However, it remains unclear how these findings extend to pregnant individuals coping with physical symptoms induced by pregnancy.…”

“Only My Husband and My Doctor Know. And You, Girls”: Online Discussions of Stigma Coping Strategies for Russian Surrogate Mothers

“…Online support groups are formed or facilitated through digital platforms, which provide a sense of space, shared practice, shared resources and support, shared identities, and interpersonal relationships [ 1 ]. Recent research points at different ways in which stigmatized individuals use digital platforms to actively cope with social stigma [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ].…”