Article on Amulet Artwork & Perinatal Death published in international journal Nurse Education Today

Artist Marie Brett has worked with scholars at University of Limerick’s Faculty of Education and Health Sciences and Midwife Consultants in Perinatal Bereavement Care on a paper about Brett’s AMULET artwork and the influence its exhibition had on midwifery students’ perceptions of caring for parents experiencing perinatal death. ‘Exploring perinatal death with midwifery students using a collaborative art project’ has been published in the Nurse Education Today journal.

This leading international journal publishes original research, review and debate in the discussion of interprofessional health care education, valuing and stimulating critical scholarly debate on issues that have strategic relevance for leaders of health care education.

‘The students connected with the women’s stories and gained insight into the hidden world of death and how women grieve. The students learned about perinatal death in a way that would not be possible using formal teaching strategies.’

‘Through reflection on the artwork and exhibition, the students have provided educators with a valuable insight into cognitive and affective learning in the context of perinatal bereavement and loss.’

‘Bereavement is part of life, and bereavement and death associated with stillbirth is recognised as a time when there may be only one chance to get it right (Downe et al., 2013). As Schott and Henly (2007) emphasise, memories may be the only things that parents have to take home, and most of those memories will involve the care they receive. In the Amulet artwork and exhibition, the amulets are special object signifiers, particular to infant loss; protecting the bereaved parent’s memory of their deceased infant (Brett, www.amulets.ie).’

To read the Abstract: http://www.nurseeducationtoday.com/article/S0260-6917(16)30196-4/abstract

To read the Article: https://ulir.ul.ie/handle/10344/5313

To find out more about the AMULET artwork: http://amulets.ie