The miscarriage, this intimate drama that weighs on women

“Let's be clear, I was pregnant for 8 weeks.

There was nothing wrong with that.

This word miscarriage, I hate it.

[...] Let's call miscarriages what they really are, stopped pregnancies, plans for children stopped short and, sometimes, as many perinatal bereavements as it is necessary to do, alone.es Our miscarriages are dramas silent, pains lived in the shadows.

Like one woman in ten, Sandra Lorenzo, the author of her lines, saw her pregnancy stop.

It was her second pregnancy, and she had hardly ever heard of it.

It took him five ultrasounds and an unbearable wait before hearing this terrible diagnosis: "The pregnancy is over," a doctor told him, without giving him more information.

"Everything will be alright,

don't worry ma'am.

(…) It will be like big rules

, he simply answered his many questions about what would happen next.

A traumatic event that the journalist recounts in a book,

(1).

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True or false?

Seven misconceptions about miscarriage

Unlike previous generations, where miscarriages were kept secret, many women today are speaking out on the subject.

Before Sandra Lorenzo, Céline Kallmann, another journalist, recounted her painful experience in an Instagram post in June 2021. When she quickly had the intuition "that it was over", she went to the emergency room to get rid of it. to assure.

She then discovers an "inhuman" treatment, with a young gynecologist who hardly says hello to her and who, even before noticing anything, congratulates her

on still being fertile at 40".

“She then turned to her intern to tell her it was over.

But nothing to me, as if what I was going through didn't count

, tells us the

In video, celebrities break the taboo of miscarriage

“There is nothing wrong with a miscarriage, it is unfortunately very real”

Why is so little attention paid to women who miscarry?

Why are they sorely lacking in information?

And why, above all, such a taboo for decades?

"The term itself already raises questions and it is difficult for women to hear because there is nothing wrong with a miscarriage, it is unfortunately very real"

reacts Christine Krautter, listener within the Agapa association, which accompanies people whose pregnancy could not be carried to term, or affected by perinatal bereavement.

When they experience one, some women are told by their doctors that it is a "commonplace" and "common" phenomenon in the first trimester of pregnancy.

“When they hear this, they feel alone and misunderstood in their suffering.

For them, this is absolutely nothing trivial.

They experience it as a tragedy,” adds the vice-president of Agapa.

Women feel alone and misunderstood in their suffering

Christine Krautter

A drama that has marked women for several centuries.

“Until the 19th, miscarriage was very present in the minds of women, because if it happened or if the child was born too early, it could not be baptized.

And mothers were always considered responsible for the termination of a pregnancy, ”explains Emmanuelle Berthiaud, historian of gender and maternity.

Faced with this responsibility attributed to them, they also tended to remain silent, for fear that the pregnancy would end badly.

“The difference today is that women know much earlier that they are pregnant.

Before, they had to wait at least 2 or 3 cycles to be sure”, notes the teacher at the University of Picardie Jules Verne.

"VS'

is this silent waiting for three months that is much more difficult to live with.

Especially since the doctor is not there to bring comfort but a medical follow-up ”.

“The refusal to take into account the pain of women also encourages us not to talk about it, adds Judith Aquien, author of

(Payot editions, 2021).

Added to this are guilt-ridden speeches that give the feeling that the woman had something to do with what happened.

All of this pushes us to make it a personal matter and therefore to perpetuate the taboo

Miscarriages – like the subject of pregnancy in general – are a matter of intimacy, of the personal life of women and their spouses.

"It's a subject that makes me uncomfortable, me first

recognizes Sandra Lorenzo in an interview on the Parlons Maman (1) blog.

It deals with death and the intimate life of women through their womb.

And then there's something about motherhood: above all, expectant mothers must not be frightened.

So we know, but we don't talk about it, even in the medical profession.

We must blow this bell, we must inform so that women can prepare themselves if this happens to them

"Our mourning seems false since the way to live it does not exist"

Better training for caregivers to support these cases and know how to answer questions is what many women who have suffered a miscarriage are asking for.

“Without calling into question the enormous work they do, doctors need to be more human with us and explain to us what will happen next in our body ,

says Céline Kallmann.

How long will the bleeding last?

When can you regain a normal sex life or get pregnant again?

Without forgetting that almost all of them return to work immediately as if nothing had happened.

Currently, they are offered neither psychological support nor automatic work stoppage.

It is up to them to inform themselves and to claim if they feel the need.

It's up to us to do everything.

It is up to us to call for help, to seek it, to make an appointment.

Our mourning seems false since the way to live it does not exist.

My pregnancy, like all those that end so early, does not exist anywhere

” writes Sandra Lorenzo in her book.

All presidential candidates should take up the subject

Judith Aquien

For several months, civil society has been trying to gradually lift the taboo.

The testimonies are multiplying, podcasts address the issue, like Luna Podcast, dedicated to “alternative routes” of motherhood with a particular focus on miscarriages and perinatal bereavement.

The Agapa association works for its part to help couples but also to train caregivers in more understanding and listening, to better accommodate the suffering of women and guide them.

“It's moving but we have to go even further, so that it becomes a subject of society and public health.

All presidential candidates should seize it

” said Judith Aquien, who is calling for a “miscarriage stop” 100% covered by health insurance.

At the beginning of November, the deputy Paula Forteza presented before the National Assembly a series of 17 measures so that the first three months of pregnancy are better taken care of and taken into consideration, as well as miscarriages.

In particular, it offered 100% medical care from the start of pregnancy and no longer from three months, the implementation of telework in the first trimester or the introduction of automatic sick leave after a miscarriage.

All were rejected.

(1)

, (Éd. First), 2022, 14.95 euros.

(2)

, a blog dedicated to maternity, parenting in the broadest sense, from pregnancy to early childhood.