The taboo of miscarriages

Brut America

When Chrissy Teigen had a recent miscarriage, she openly shared a pain often kept out of sight.  So did psychologist Jessica Zucker. She set out to stop the silence around miscarriages with her candid campaign, #IHadAMiscarriage.

Transcript

00:00So my first pregnancy was smooth and uneventful and 16 weeks into my second pregnancy I miscarried

00:08while I was home by myself and was instructed by my doctor how to tend to everything. So I had to

00:14cut the umbilical cord myself and promptly began to hemorrhage of course. My husband

00:22you know got home as quickly as possible and we brought the baby in a bag to her office

00:29where I then had to undergo an unmedicated DNC and then they you know took the fetus

00:35to be tested so that we could hopefully find answers which we did. So you know suffice it

00:41to say that on a personal level this changed the course of my life and we don't know how to sort of

00:47handle this kind of thing life and death being so close to each other and intertwined and like sort

00:52of living through this liminal space. Unfortunately because we don't talk about it

01:11I think it leaves women feeling that much more alone and even more inclined to be you know

01:17quietly ruminating thinking what did I do wrong? What did I eat? What did I drink? You know should

01:23I not have exercised? Whatever it is they turn to uh to blame themselves when in fact we know that

01:3080 percent of miscarriages are due to chromosomal abnormalities and the remainder have to do with

01:36something maybe going on in the woman's body. I had people say wow at least you look so good

01:50aren't those your pre-pregnancy genes? You know I so people commenting on my body which was actually

01:56really painful and confusing because of course I still wanted to be pregnant and not looking

02:01pregnant wasn't really a goal. So sometimes people are projecting how they might feel

02:07and and that feels uncomfortable too. So it's it's really helpful when people can just simply say you

02:13know tell me what you're going through. I am here for you. I want to know what it's like for you.

02:18What I find problematic about the 12-week rule is I think that it really sort of translates into

02:31saying don't share your good news because if it becomes bad news then you'll have to share your

02:37bad news. So why don't you wait to share the good news to be sure that there is no bad news to share.

02:43So to me that's sort of like a setup for isolating grieving women and actually it's isolating the

02:50joy as well. So I say you know share if you want don't share if you don't want. I don't know

02:57anybody who doesn't need support after a loss even if they're not devastated by the loss.

03:13It's time that we upend this stigma. It's time to shout instead of being silent.

03:23It's because miscarriages are going nowhere. It's not a disease. We cannot cure it. It's not like oh

03:30in 10 years that we're going to have some cure for miscarriage. There's just no way to cure

03:35something like this. And so we may as well just get you know more comfortable, more fluid

03:43changing the zeitgeist so that our generation and future generations can benefit.

03:52you

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