Miscarriage is tragic, but there are ways to move forward
The intense grief experienced by Chrissy Teigen and John Legend after the loss of unborn baby Jake gripped our nation in recent weeks. Millions of fans around the world mourned for them.
An epidemic that is miscarriage impacts millions of couples every year. Unfortunately, so many couples have mourned before and many more will go through unimaginable emotional pain following their own miscarriage.
This miscarriage epidemic affects 10 to 25% of all pregnancies. For individuals and couples on the journey to familyhood, the miscarriage subject matter is not spoken about often enough, if at all. Though a tragic situation, Teigen and Legend’s bedside social-media posts showing real, raw, timely grief after losing their baby has widely opened the door for the miscarriage conversation to be had.
A few elements may help future moms and partners build or rebuild their desired family in a more realistic and educated way.
Miscarriage is a couple’s disease. The emotional impact affects both partners. It is the most emotional area in medicine, likely more intense than oncology. The loss represents the family’s broken hopes and dreams and is a traumatic event that sometimes lasts for years.
The lasting and intense grief experienced by infertility patients, referred to “the walking wounded,” is an unrecognized issue in the health-care industry. The dramatic event often leads to deep depression and other mental issues. In our practice, our trained psychologists are diagnosing patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) years after they miscarried.
This is a conversation that needs to happen soon after the loss, as part of a holistic approach to treating the mind and the body of patients.
Although devastating, both mentally and emotionally, to hear “try again,” the odds of a successful pregnancy after a miscarriage are still very high. In fact, according to The
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), even after multiple losses, a woman has a greater than 70% chance of conceiving and carrying a full-term pregnancy. The decision on when to try again is a personal choice to be decided with your partner and your medical provider. But overall, the prognosis of recurrent miscarriage is encouraging.
In the past, women were told to wait until they had three consecutive miscarriages before seeking intervention. That is no longer the rule. With modern improvements in genetic testing and infertility treatments, couples can identify problems earlier and learn how to prevent future heartache.
We know women face pressure balancing a career and family and often delay starting a family until less-than-optimal fertility age – and when miscarrying risk is higher. I encourage women and couples to plan their families as early as possible, by considering freezing their eggs or sperm while young. By age 40, a woman has a lower than 10% chance of getting pregnant during each menstrual cycle.
In addition to lifestyle choices, there are many reasons to consider egg freezing: it is an option for women facing chemotherapy and radiation treatments or some surgeries that can damage fertility. And patients have the option of either freezing their eggs or freezing embryos (fertilized eggs).
There are many reasons to keep optimistic after one or more miscarriages. The miscarriage epidemic can be prevented. Pregnancy is a long journey that starts early in life and requires patience, planning, positivity, medical care experts, as well as psychological support. The magic and the immense joy that results from each successful pregnancy makes it all worthwhile.