ABSTRACT
When parents find out that their expectant child has a deviation or malformation they have to make a decision to terminate or continue the pregnancy. This leads to many different difficult feelings. Parents use different management strategies to process these feelings and the choice they need to make. Information from healthcare professionals is important.
The aim of this work was to highlight the parents' experiences of waiting a child with malformations or chromosomal aberrations.
The method used was a literature review. Sixteen scientific original articles, published 2000 -2017, were included in the results. Integrative analysis was used.
The result showed that women experienced an elevated level of shock, sadness, anxiety, guilt, disappointment and fear. The result revealed four main headings such as perceived feelings, parents' preparation and coping, future thoughts and experiences/experiences in contact with healthcare. It turned out that information should be personalized and this is a challenge for midwives. It also turned out that for several reasons parents choose to end pregnancy or continue it and decide to give birth to the child who has a malformation or aberration.
As a conclusion, it emerged that women are undergoing a crisis when it finds that their child have an aberration.