Making sense of a miscarriage

via todaychristianwoman.com

"..Miscarriages are so common – one in five pregnancies end up in a miscarriage," says Arri Coomarasamy, a professor of gynaecology at the University of Birmingham. Empathy is soothingly evident in his voice as I come to the end of my story.

The one in five figure is often quoted. Sometimes it creeps up to one in four. This is because it's difficult to determine how many miscarriages take place. In the UK, miscarriage means the loss of a pregnancy during the first 23 weeks (any later and it is called stillbirth). But it often occurs before a woman even realises she's pregnant, and most of the time – 85 per cent – it is in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

That has given us clear social guidelines. The "12-week rule" warns against telling anyone you're pregnant until the end of the third month. It anticipates the risk of loss, even sets us up to tentatively expect miscarriage during the early stages of pregnancy, but this silence doesn't make it any easier if it does happen.

A recent survey of over 6,000 women who had had a miscarriage, conducted by the charity Tommy's, found that around two-thirds found it hard to talk about. The same number felt that they couldn't discuss their miscarriage with their best friend. A third didn't feel that they could even talk to the father about it..."

Read the whole article here:
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-03-miscarriage.html