The prevalence of perinatal loss and the great interest in When Pregnancy Fails (see When Pregnancy Fails for background and full text) led to further research: an NIH-funded longitudinal study, co-led by psychology Professor Lori Toedter of Moravian College, of 174 bereaved mothers and fathers. With vital assistance from Louise Potvin and our staff at Lehigh University, we developed the Perinatal Grief Scale, the first social science tool designed to measure grief following reproductive loss.

The PGS, a 33-item measure, has been widely used and validated around the world for many types of loss around pregnancy, and it has also been translated into multiple languages. It is available for anyone to use without permission or cost.

Here are the Perinatal Grief Scale and scoring instructions and a list of articles that emerged from the Lehigh/Moravian research:

Perinatal Grief Scale and Scoring

Publications on Perinatal Loss – Lehigh and Moravian

Here are links to documents with translations of the PGS:

Arabic Translation Perinatal Grief Scale. Author is Nagwa El-Feshawy, assistant lecturer at the Faculty of Nursing at Mansoura University, Egypt

Brazilian Portuguese and Canadian French Translation Validation of Perinatal Grief Scale

Chinese Validation of Perinatal Grief Scale

Chinese – Psychometric Properties of the Perinatal Grief Scale

Czech Translation of Perinatal Grief Scale

Czech Validation of Perinatal Grief Scale

French – Presentation of the Potvin, Lasker and Toedter Grief Rating Scale: Pre- and Perinatal Clinical Utility

German Translation of Perinatal Grief Scale

Greek Translation of Perinatal Grief Scale

Greek Validation of Translated Perinatal Grief Scale

Hebrew Version of Perinatal Grief Scale – Translated by Gily Agar, gily.agar@gmail.com

Hindi Translation of Perinatal Grief Scale

Italian Translation and Scoring Instructions of Perinatal Grief Scale

Persian – Validation of the Translation of Perinatal Grief Scale

Polish Translation of Perinatal Grief Scale

Portuguese Translation of Perinatal Grief Scale – Author is Dr. Jose Rocha, Departamento de Psicologia Cooperativa de Ensino Superior, Politécnico e Universitário, Gandra, Portugal

Perinatal Grief in Spanish Speaking Families-Psychometric Testing of the New Spanish Version of the Perinatal Grief Scale (Short Version), Poster Abstract

Perinatal Grief Scale Perinatal Grief Scale: Validation in Mexican Women with Gestational Loss (Mexican Spanish)

Perinatal Grief Scale – Spanish Version for Spain

Translating the Short Version of the Perinatal Grief Scale: Process and Challenges (USA Spanish)

Comparisons of 3 Spanish versions of the Perinatal Grief Scale (Mexico, Spain, USA)

Depressive Disorder and Grief Following Spontaneous Abortion (Sri Lanka)

Turkish Translation of Perinatal Grief Scale