Our helpline: 01924 200799 Mon, Tue, Thu 9am-4pm | Wed, Fri 9am-8pm
After completing this unit you will:
Sometimes just having someone listen to how you feel, the guilt and the heartbreak, helps to ease it.
Women can react in different ways to the diagnosis of miscarriage, ectopic or molar pregnancy.
Here are 12 words that describe the reactions that people may have to a pregnancy loss. First, click on the six words that are, in your experience, the most common reactions.
Particularly common at a routine scan when the diagnosis is completely unexpected; or if an apparent miscarriage is later diagnosed as a molar pregnancy; or if the woman diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy didn’t even know that she was pregnant. The physical process of loss in any trimester can also be shocking.
She has had no pain or bleeding and feels all the normal pregnancy symptoms – she thinks you must be wrong. This may be a reaction with a missed or silent miscarriage.
She knows she was pregnant, so if there’s just an empty sac, where has the baby gone? If the pregnancy is much smaller than expected or if it is a pregnancy of unknown location, how does this make sense?
Very few women will have heard of molar pregnancy and will almost certainly Google it if it is suspected. Seeing the words ‘cancer’, or ‘trophoblastic disease’ can be very frightening.
The symptoms and diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy, especially if requiring immediate treatment, can also be very frightening.
She was expecting a baby and now it’s gone, along with all the hopes, dreams and plans she had for it.
This is a devastating blow and a life-changing event. Perhaps this was a pregnancy after fertility treatment or the last chance to have a baby.
She assumes it must be her fault – something that she did or didn’t do; or perhaps due to not really wanting this pregnancy.
If she had been seen earlier or had been offered certain treatment, this would not have happened. Or, she wants to be referred for investigations but this is not being offered. Perhaps she is sure you are wrong and wants to talk with someone more senior.
Unable or unwilling to communicate. She does not want to discuss or hear anything. It is important to recognise that this is not the right time to discuss things further and it is better to let her go home with written information and contact numbers for when she is ready.
These things happen and it’s a disappointing set-back, but not a disaster. Or, maybe she’s not someone who expresses her feelings in public – for personal or cultural reasons.
About the physical process to come and what she might see; about it happening again; about future fertility, perhaps especially after ectopic pregnancy; about her future health in some cases.
She needs to understand why it happened and especially to know what can be done to avoid it happening again.
This wasn’t a planned or wanted pregnancy – perhaps she’d considered having a termination – so it’s made things easier. Or, she’d rather miscarry now than have a baby with an abnormality. Perhaps it’s a relief to have a final diagnosis after weeks of uncertainty.
Think about the reactions that you have explored just now.
Miscarriage can be a devastating experience. For some women it is a great sadness; others are upset at the time but can recover quickly. Miscarriage is not like grieving for someone you knew. Instead women might mourn the loss of their baby’s future and their own future as that baby’s parent.
In this film clip you can listen to the experiences of two women, Catherine and Emily, who have experienced miscarriage in different ways. They each explain the impact that the experience has had on them.
Miscarriage is never easy – for those experiencing the loss or for the staff who are looking after them. You may not get it right for everyone, but women will always remember your care, kindness and compassion.
You might not be able to meet all a woman’s expectations but good listening, respect and acknowledging her feelings can help.
Providing clear information can help to reduce distress and uncertainty and enable some sense of control.
It can help if you:
I cannot fault the care I received last week. At no point was I unsure of what was going on and nor was I given false hope (which would have done more emotional harm).
The nurses were incredibly sympathetic and caring with their words, their tone and their time.
Health professionals who care for women in different settings and at different stages of pregnancy may notice some common reactions in those instances.
Click on the folders below to see what pregnancy loss might mean to the woman at different stages of her journey.
The paramedics were wonderful. They called my husband, asked if there was anyone else I needed contacting… and they gave me some gas and air, which I needed.
Women come to their ultrasound scan with a range of expectations, concerns and emotions. A woman may feel:
In the scan room, I had expected to see our baby kicking and waving furiously. Instead, nothing. I felt stunned.
Women may come to their general practice at any stage of their pregnancy. In relation to pregnancy loss, the woman may be:
My GP was fabulous. She knew what we’d been through to get pregnant at all and was so supportive.
I didn’t like being left to sit in the waiting room, covered in blood from the bottom down.
Depending on the setting, a woman who is miscarrying may feel out of place and find it very distressing to be:
Women in their second trimester may be very distressed at having to go through labour and delivery; but they might also find comfort in being cared for by the maternity team.
Theatre staff should be sensitive to the likely emotional impact of surgical management of miscarriage. Clinically it is a routine and straightforward procedure, but it can cause considerable distress to the woman. It will help her if you show kindness and compassion.
Thank you to the lady who took her time to explain everything on the screen to me and acknowledged my loss.
