Experiencing a miscarriage is devastating, and when we do, we are not necessarily treated as we perhaps should be by the medical profession and society really. When faced with someone else’s grief and sadness, as humans we offer platitudes, or try to offer our own experience, perhaps as some sort of support? But it’s not helpful to hear always is it? Something needs to be done, but what? Do we need education about miscarriage, about dealing with someone else grief and how to support, how to avoid invalidating their pain? You will know if you’ve heard me talk before, how passionate I am about education and further investigation and this stands true to this subject. There are many reasons for miscarriage, but some, and I reiterate SOME, I do believe can be prevented. With knowledge we can explore our options. If you want to know more about your results and how I can specifically help you, why not get in touch and book a free clarity call. |
Hi, and welcome to Episode 53 of the Fertility Rewire
In this episode, I am going to talk a little about miscarriage. It's something I've talked about before, and I've shared with you about my miscarriage with my first pregnancy. It was a missed miscarriage that I had, and I just wanted to really dig in. If you have had a miscarriage, if you've experienced any loss on your fertility journey at all, I just wanted say, first of all, that I'm really, really sorry for your loss.
What I'm interested to know is what would have helped you? Did something help you, that happened, or if not, what would have helped you? Because the more and more people that I speak to along this journey, having experienced miscarriage, having experienced loss, it's never quite handled the way it should be, and I do think that we have platitudes. As humans, there was a lot of platitude use. I remember being told things like, "Well, at least you know you can get pregnant," and "At least it was early," and "It obviously wasn't meant to be." And it's very common, and it affects one in four.
Although interestingly, here in the UK, I've just looked at the NHS website, and that says it affects one in eight, which beggars belief, but there we go. So it affects an awful lot of people. And when you are experiencing or you have experienced a miscarriage, is it comforting to know that lots of other people have had them? Does that make you feel any better?
I'm going to liken this to something else. I've talked about my MS diagnosis, and when I was diagnosed with MS, I didn't tell a lot of people. But when I did tell people, I just had people telling me, "Oh, I know someone that has MS. Yes, we have a friend that has MS," and then how worse their MS was than mine. And it was like, "Gosh, I'm dealing with this, and I can't even deal with this, because now I've got to deal with everybody else's things that are going on."
As humans, we're not good at seeing other people in pain. We're not good. We feel uncomfortable in various situations, and a lot of humans, a lot of us, have this want to make it better, to say something to make you feel better. If you lose an elderly relative, you'll be told that at least they've had a good life. It doesn't make it any better, does it? Doesn't make it any better at all.
So what I want you to think about, and this is just more thought-provoking. If you haven't had a miscarriage, it's interesting. You won't know what you would say to somebody, were they to have a miscarriage, because you don't know until you're in the process. But when you hear platitudes, when you give platitudes, what you're doing is you're invalidating somebody's pain. You're almost pushing that aside. "Oh, it's very common. It happens to a lot of people. At least you know you can get pregnant." You're pushing aside, because what happens in a miscarriage, and I'm not talking about physically, is we all know what happens in a miscarriage. When you are pregnant, even if you are pregnant for three days, you already know the estimated due date of that baby. You've already got plans in place. You cannot help it. You've gone to the future. Of course, you're starting to think about this. If it's a second child, you've already worked out the age gap.
So it's that loss of hope. It's that loss of what was coming, not a loss of what has been, in a way, if that makes sense. It's a loss of that hope. It's a loss of that future. It is huge. So it's not just early, and it doesn't give you any sense of satisfaction that you can actually get pregnant. It is a huge, huge thing, and it is not handled well in society. And unfortunately, in the large majority of cases and people I talk to, it is not handled well medically. It is quite run-of-the-mill. It is quite one-of-those-things, and the emotional support is very, very poor.
We need to teach about miscarriage. We need to teach about the physical and the emotional effects of miscarriage. My children, well, my son, did about human reproduction in, I think it was year seven. So he was 11, and I don't think he came away knowing anything, really, apart from egg and sperm get together, and nine months later, there's a baby. And that's it. That's it. And maybe it's not in the curriculum, but surely it's something that's needed. And maybe if it's not taught in school... I don't know. Is there a way that we can get this education across to people before trying for a baby, about what the risk factors are for miscarriage? What factors might affect it? Is there something that can be done?
I really didn't know what I was going to talk about when I came on here. It was platitudes, basically, but I have gone a little bit ranty there. But it is something that I'm incredibly passionate about, and it fits with everything else that I'm passionate about, about fertility.
So should we be teaching more about miscarriage? We should, in my opinion, be teaching more about the menstrual cycle, about the balance of the menstrual cycle when it comes to wanting to get pregnant. But not just then. Beforehand, because it affects different symptoms. If you've got high estrogen, you've got that estrogen excess, you've got, in effect, a low progesterone to support. You've got painful periods. If you've got symptoms of low progesterone that lead to more PMs, then that is a factor. All these things, you should be educated about. All these things, you should be able to look into in more detail.
But should we be educating people, A, about miscarriage, physically? But B, what can we do to encourage people to be more open about their fertility journey, to have the support when it comes to when they have a miscarriage? But where is that support? Where is that support? So it's important. I think it's important to have a safety net in place for anything, really. You'll have your friends that you can just speak to and they can tell in your voice that there is something wrong. But if you haven't told anybody that you are pregnant, that you have been trying to get pregnant, where is the support if you then had a miscarriage? Where is that support for you?
So I wanted you just to think about this. Have you told anybody that you are trying for a baby? Do you have that support network in place? For a lot of my clients, I am that support network, because they haven't told other people. But for many people, you have told a small number. And choose your number. Choose a person that can be your support. Choose that person and share with that person, and if you can't, dig a little bit deeper, as what it is that prevents you from sharing.
That's just something I wanted you to think about, because get your safety net in place. I don't want to think doom and gloom and tempt fate or anything like that, but what's your safety net? Who's your safety net? Because I'm afraid the support isn't out there, widely, for you, were it to happen. But let's step back and let's look at your cycle. Let's look at issues before you start trying to conceive that might reduce, potentially, your chances of some causes of miscarriage.