Miscarriages change our bodies as much as childbirth. Can we talk about that? | Jessica Zucker and Sara Gaynes Levy

Women who have miscarried have seen their bodies change exponentially, but with no baby to prove why. It can all feel so futile

In recent years, a zeitgeist shift surrounding the way we talk about postpartum bodies has stormed through culture. The preoccupation with “bouncing back” after the birth of a baby, while not completely erased, has begun to fade. In its place, a dialogue borne mainly through social media encourages grace, acceptance, and self-love for women whose bodies have changed in the wake of growing a human. You made a person. Of course things are different. Wear these changes with pride, the messages say.

It’s a well-intended and much-needed societal shift – women needn’t expect themselves to return to their pre-partum body overnight, if ever. But unfortunately there are countless women who may not feel included by these mantras about loving your postpartum body, as they imply one crucial element: a live birth.

Jessica Zucker is a Los Angeles-based psychologist specializing in women’s reproductive and maternal mental health and the author of a forthcoming book about pregnancy loss. Sara Gaynes Levy is a freelance writer in New York City covering health, wellness and women’s issues.

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Out-of-pocket costs for birth in private system 'shocking', midwifery expert says

Exclusive: study shows women with private cover pay considerably more than those who go to public hospital

The out‐of‐pocket fees incurred by mothers with private health insurance are considerably higher than fees for mothers who give birth in public facilities, according to a new study – a finding that a leading midwifery researcher has described as “shocking”.

The study was led by Griffith University associate professor Emily Callander, who said until now very little was known about out‐of‐pocket expenses associated with maternity care in Australia.

Related: AMA calls for overhaul of private health insurance as young people opt out

Related: Private health insurance review finds reforms failed and industry in a 'death spiral'

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Lessons amid the loneliness of grief | Letters

Bereaved readers Helen Jenkins and Michael Chapman write about their experiences of loss

I was saddened to read Devika Bhat’s article (Grieving for a baby who did not live, G2, 28 October), which happened to be published the 32nd anniversary of our own stillborn daughter’s birth. I was saddened also that Bhat feels the subject of pregnancy loss is something that is swept under the carpet.

I found that when I talked about my experience, many women and men told me that this had happened to them also. I did draw comfort from feeling I was not alone. I also joined Sands, a fantastic organisation that offers advice and support to families who have lost babies. When stillbirth or any pregnancy loss happens to you it is a tremendous and terrible shock. Grief is very hard and lonely. And when people are pregnant it is not the right time to talk about all the ways a baby can be lost. So many of us when we are expecting a baby or when a woman is pregnant shut our minds to the fact that a baby can be stillborn or die. It is only when this terrible thing has happened that we can talk about this experience. You are not alone. Contact Sands at sands.org.uk or via the helpline on 0808 164 3332.
Helen Jenkins
London

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Post-term pregnancy research cancelled after six babies die

Swedish researchers say proceeding with induction trial would have been unethical

Sweden has cancelled a major study of women whose pregnancy continued beyond 40 weeks after six babies died.

The research was halted a year ago after five stillbirths and one early death in the babies of women allowed to continue their pregnancies into week 43.

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I feel my in-laws are punishing me for having a miscarriage

I am still devastated but they have avoided me after I said how unfair I felt it was that I had lost my baby

Three years ago, I had a miscarriage and I am still heartbroken. It’s been made harder by my in-laws giving me the cold shoulder. Not long after my loss, my mother-in-law asked if I was uncomfortable seeing my sister-in-law (who was pregnant with her third child). I answered honestly that I was, and added in an unguarded moment that I felt it unfair that she was able to get pregnant while I struggled. Since then they have avoided me. I asked my mother-in-law about it and she said they didn’t want to see me “in case they said something wrong”. My husband thinks they will come around eventually but I feel as if I’m being punished and constantly reminded of what was the saddest time of my life. I really don’t know how to move forward.

• When leaving a message on this page, please be sensitive to the fact that you are responding to a real person in the grip of a real-life dilemma, who wrote to Private Lives asking for help, and may well view your comments here. Please consider especially how your words or the tone of your message could be perceived by someone in this situation, and be aware that comments that appear to be disruptive or disrespectful to the individual concerned will be removed.

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Is drinking coffee safe during your pregnancy? Get ready for some nuance | Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz

We live in the real world where pregnant people are people and shouldn’t be locked in a cage of guilt for nine months

Pregnancy seems like a scary time. Not just because you’re all of a sudden growing a tiny person inside you – although, yes, definitely that – but because there are a million people trying to terrify you with stories about otherwise-innocuous things. Sushi? Before pregnancy, it’s a delightful lunch. Once you’re pregnant, it’s suddenly horrifying poison, only to be eaten if you want to die of listeria or campylobacter or some other scary-sounding disease.

Also, and I cannot stress this enough, growing a tiny person inside you.

Related: Kaz Cooke: women were in the dark about their pregnancies. Now there’s too much advice

Who do we believe? The new study or the previous research?

Related: Pregnancy is the ultimate endurance test. If a man says it, it must be true | Suzanne Moore

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Alcohol advice for pregnant women | Letters

Leigh Lewis and Elaine Hindal of Drinkaware and Hubert Sacy of Éduc’alcool respond to a report on research that criticised the advice their organisations give

Your article (Pregnant women encouraged to drink by alcohol industry, researchers claim, 14 October) suggests that Drinkaware has published information saying “light drinking” in pregnancy is safe. Nowhere on our website are there any such statements. On the contrary, we advise unequivocally that the safest approach is not to drink at all during pregnancy or while trying to conceive, and we refer clearly to the chief medical officers’ guidelines. We also set out in detail on our website the risks of foetal alcohol syndrome. It is suggested that our information “confuses matters by adding: ‘How a baby will be affected depends on how much its mother drinks’”; far from confusing matters, this is simply a statement of fact. We urge anybody in doubt to visit our website to view what we say: www.drinkaware.co.uk
Leigh Lewis Chairman, Drinkaware
Elaine Hindal CEO, Drinkaware

• Your article claims that Éduc’alcool “maintains that ‘[the] risk to the foetus is reduced considerably if you have only one drink every now and then’”. This is actually an excerpt from a joint publication by the Quebec College of Physicians and Éduc’alcool – part of the answer to a very specific question: “Does limited drinking endanger the foetus in the same way [as heavy drinking]?” And the answer continues: “The effects of alcohol are proportional to the amount you drink and how frequently you drink. That’s why abstaining from drinking throughout your pregnancy is the safest choice.”

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'She made me brave': Kristina Keneally demands paid leave for parents of stillborn babies

Labor senator will move a cross-party motion in the Senate to recognise the loss of stillbirth and the coming national action plan

It might seem like a regular Tuesday, but for millions of parents around Australia, it represents beloved children’s birthdays they didn’t live to celebrate.

International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day commemorates the death of a newborn, serving as a day to remember fluttering heartbeats which suddenly stopped.

Related: Stillbirths: Australia's health policies 'failing these babies and their families'

Hi Kristina, we're committed to supporting our people, through all personal circumstances. In addition to our paid leave options we offer a range of additional support mechanisms for people experiencing loss and grief, including miscarriage and stillbirth. Best, ^Matt

Related: The tragedy of stillbirth: 'An unfathomable amount of heartbreak'

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Share your experiences of pregnancy and giving birth while in prison

Whether you or someone you know has been pregnant or given birth behind bars, we would like to hear from you

The death of a newborn baby after a woman gave birth alone in her cell last month has prompted a wave of concern from MPs, medical professionals and those working with prisoners. Since the Guardian’s initial report on the case, 11 separate investigations have been announced aimed at uncovering how this tragedy came about. A central question is how the woman had come to be without medical or emotional support during her labour and the birth of her baby at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey, Europe’s largest female prison.

There are an estimated 600 pregnant women held in prisons in England and Wales, and about 100 babies are born there each year.

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Alcohol industry 'puts pregnant women at risk', researchers say

Firms and bodies are casting doubt on health advice for expecting women to abstain from drinking

Alcohol firms and bodies they fund are encouraging women to drink in pregnancy – putting their unborn child in danger – by publishing false and misleading information about the risks involved, new research claims.

The alcohol industry is ignoring scientific evidence as part of a drive to “nudge” mothers-to-be into drinking as part of a deliberate strategy to ensure women keep consuming their products because young people are turning away from them, researchers say.

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How can every mind matter in a broken mental health system? | Letters

Readers respond to the launch of the NHS Every Mind Matters campaign and share their thoughts on other mental health issues

Congratulations to Suzanne Moore for highlighting those who are forgotten in campaigns such as Every Mind Matters (Telling people to jog will not solve this mental health crisis, 8 October). When Jeremy Hunt spoke of the biggest expansion of mental health services in Europe, he referred to expanded provision for people with mild to moderate problems. Those with serious mental heath problems have found that there is no therapy for them, specialist services like assertive outreach have disappeared, and their community mental health teams are too busy managing crises to support them.

I work with people who regularly self-harm and feel suicidal. Because the NHS has a tendency to keep them out of services and ignore NICE guidelines aimed at helping them, they find themselves the subjects of reports such as “No Longer A Diagnosis of Exclusion” and “The Patients Psychiatrists Dislike”. As they are turned away while seeking help and reading “If you feel that life is not worth living, you’re harming yourself or have thought about self-harm, it’s important to tell someone” on the Every Mind Matters website they will rightly feel gaslighted. We are building awareness of difficulties for which there is no help. We are encouraging people to talk while leaving them alone. Despite this, the insult of being manipulative and deceitful is thrown at the people wanting help, not those who promise the earth but whose words are dust. It’s clear that some minds don’t matter as much as others.
Keir Harding
Wrexham, Clwyd

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Kaz Cooke: women were in the dark about their pregnancies. Now there’s too much advice

In 20 years, Up the Duff has sold almost half a million copies – in that time the science of pregnancy has changed, but people haven’t

A woman with bird’s nest hair plonked down next to me in a cafe last year, holding a tiny baby with dark chocolate eyes and a fluffball of black hair. She launched into a graphic description of her baby’s recent birth. “… and then Aunty Helen* barged right into the room holding up her phone, taking photos of my hoo-hars”.

I had never seen this woman before, wasn’t aware the word hoo-har could be a plural, and couldn’t have picked Aunty Helen out of a lineup for a cash prize. But somehow she knew I had written the pregnancy book she’d read. In her mind, I’d been through the pregnancy with her, so she was just giving me the exit report. It was lovely.

Related: Pregnancy is the ultimate endurance test. If a man says it, it must be true | Suzanne Moore

Related: We’re a queer couple trying for a baby. Stop asking ‘How does that work?’ | Kat Patrick

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The 12-week pregnancy rule makes the pain of miscarriage worse | Katy Lindemann

The secrecy around early pregnancy means that many women grieve in private, weighed down by feelings of guilt and failure

Most of us will be familiar with the “12-week” rule – the longstanding social convention that dictates that women mustn’t tell anyone they’re pregnant before the 12-week mark, “in case something happens”. It’s time to talk about the insidious effect it has on women who suffer a miscarriage early in their pregnancy.

An estimated 650 babies are miscarried every day in the UK, with the vast majority occurring during the first trimester. Most of these losses will be suffered in silence, because it’s considered so socially unacceptable to reveal that you’re pregnant before 12 weeks – let alone that you were pregnant, but now you’re not. It’s baffling that in 2019 we seem so wedded to an anachronistic superstition about tempting fate that shames women into keeping quiet and heaps blame on the woman who dares to “tell” and subsequently loses her baby – as though we were still in a bygone era where the stigma of miscarrying could mark you out as cursed. Social mores around the 12-week rule are brimming with contradictions: it’s fine to broadcast the minutiae of our daily lives on Instagram, yet disclosing that we’re pregnant, even just to close friends and family, is somehow transgressive.

Related: How a pioneering study of child health has influenced a generation of parents | Juliet Rix

The 12-week rule perpetuates the notion that early pregnancy loss is something to hide and we shouldn’t make a fuss.

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