When someone loses a baby, whether it’s at 6 weeks or 36 weeks, it’s a pain and a loss that many people can’t understand. Often our first reaction on hearing the sad news is to ease their suffering by dismissing it as “nothing” … “it wasn’t meant to be,” or “don’t worry, you’ll have another baby when the time is right.” (What do those things even mean, anyway?)
Most people have good intentions when saying such things; they don’t think they’re making matters worse — but the reality is, those statements are harmful. Nothing you can say or do will mitigate the fact that a woman’s baby is no longer growing inside her, and the sooner the rest of us catch on to that fact, the better equipped we’ll be to help a friend or sister begin to heal from the grief: simply by acknowledging this was in fact a life, a loss, a child. #theymattertoo
The reality is, one in four women suffer a miscarriage. Check out this new social media campaign which is an uncomfortable but necessary eye-opener on how we talk to women who’ve suffered a miscarriage:
You can find more photos of women and the insensitive comments they’ve experienced on the Rise for Women Facebook page.
Read more:
The stages of grief after a miscarriage
