Miscarriage - an "invisible phenomenon"

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Expectant women are often advised that they should not publicly reveal their pregnancy until they are past the 12-week mark. One reason given is the high chance of miscarriage in the first trimester. The assumption is that if you were to have a miscarriage, the last thing you’d want is for anyone to know about it. It is a misfortune which we are expected to keep to ourselves.


Dux goes on to recount her own recent experience of miscarriage. It is not actually such an uncommon event amongst adult women. Indeed, for every three women who have given birth by their early 30s, one has had a miscarriage. Yet, Dux argues, despite its frequency, miscarriage is an “almost invisible” phenomenon.

It seems our society is not geared towards grieving, or even acknowledging, the loss of an early pregnancy. As the American author Peggy Orenstein has observed, the English language doesn’t even have a word for a lost foetus.

It makes you wonder: would grieving women find more support if the subject wasn’t hidden away as an shameful “women’s issue”? Or do many women actually prefer not to talk about? I assume there are 10,000 different answers to the question. A little acknowledgment might go a long way though.