
Miscarriage can lead to 'long-term post-traumatic stress' - adrian_mrd
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51093999
======
vvvnnnnvvv
I had a miscarriage at 10w (baby measuring 6w). For many months, I was haunted
by things like going in for my first doctor's appointment and seeing my empty
uterus on the screen. I thought about all those people, like the receptionist
in the waiting room, who said "congrats" even though there was nothing to
congratulate me for. I opted for medical management but didn't take the drugs
until the pain was unbearable. Although that was the single worst 45m of my
life, I don't think about it as much.

I am pregnant again, but I am not the same. I am not excited, I am not making
plans. We waited to tell our parents until 13 weeks. Even though I'm showing,
I've told the people who absolutely need to know because I don't want to talk
about it. I don't want to have a baby shower because I don't want to have to
look all the stuff if the baby ends up dying.

I participate in /r/Miscarriage, /r/ttcafterloss, and /r/pregnancyafterloss.
People there are sad about losses that happened months, years, sometimes even
10 years ago. They - we! - are triggered by pregnant women, our original due
dates (next week for me), the idea of getting pregnant again.

It's a surprise to me that we're able to call this a discovery. I feel like a
Native American talking to Christopher Columbus.

~~~
mrkurt
A bunch of my friends have had miscarriages, and this seems so common. I can't
imagine the trauma and I get not wanting to celebrate. And you know what? I
think it's ok to not celebrate.

We had a very stressful pregnancy (we were teenagers with no money and unhappy
soon-to-be-grandparents). There was no joy in it, we tried not to tell anyone,
and only two people said "congrats" when they found out. I'm sad about that to
this day ... especially for my wife, who I think missed out on something a lot
of women delight in.

Our other three kids came through foster care, they showed up with little
notice and we adopted them several years later. There was no pregnancy
experience.

So we've never celebrated a pregnancy, but we sure as heck celebrate our kids.

~~~
epoxyhockey
> So we've never celebrated a pregnancy

I’m sorry to hear this and it must make you sad every time you think about it.

I think it is very difficult to go through life, experiencing all of life’s
milestones in the way we might wish.

Another example is in those fortunate to celebrate a work retirement party.
Others may fall ill, take leave and quietly retire without returning to work
and have no retirement party.

Life seems unpredictable, unfair. Knowing that makes celebrations of life,
when we can have them, much more special.

~~~
mrkurt
The milestones take is insightful. :thumbsup:

------
russnewcomer
My wife and I struggle with infertility, I have family members with a history
of miscarriage, and my wife leads a women’s infertility support group.

American culture does not know what to do about natal issues. (Arguably, no
culture ever has) We need to recognize that reproductive health goes far
beyond binary abortion debates, and can affect women permanently, to say
nothing of the rest of the family. I can say, knowing people that suffer from
PTSD for natal issues and long term war trauma, the degrees of suffering may
be different, but the unhealthy coping mechanisms can do equal amount of
damage.

If you or your family is dealing with miscarriage or infertility, there is
help and support out there specifically for you. I would be happy to help
point anyone toward the resources that I know of, and more than happy to talk
to any husbands who want help knowing how to support their wives.

~~~
daxorid
_American culture does not know what to do about natal issues._

Because the vast majority of correct answers are politically incorrect. There
are a _lot_ of causes of infertility, but the two main ones in the developed
world are delayed pregnancy and obesity (mediated most often by PCOS) - both
of which are personal choices.

And it's simply not an option to tell a woman the medical reality that career-
before-kids or eating too many calories is guaranteed to reduce your chances
of having children. We have collectively decided that sparing others' feelings
and indulging in others' have-it-all fantasies is the pinnacle of moral
behavior.

On the mens' side, we also contend with sperm counts _halving_ in 40 years and
virtually nobody caring beyond half-hearted "hey look at this scary stat lol"
level commentary. Motility and morphology have also seen dramatic declines.
For whatever reason, we simply don't care.

~~~
russnewcomer
The causal link between PCOS and obesity is more thought to go the way that
PCOS (and endometriosis) can cause obesity, not the other way around.

------
bcrosby95
Miscarriages are pretty common too. Anywhere from 10-25% of "recognized"
pregnancies end in miscarriage. Among our close friends and family with kids
(N=16), we're the only ones that has 2 or more kids and had no miscarriages.

If you have married friends or friends with kids, its probably best not to
joke about when they're going to pop one out. Fertility can be long,
expensive, and not very fun.

~~~
davrosthedalek
While jokes are not good, it's important to talk about it. A good friend of
mine had to go through multiple miscarriages, and almost lost her life in the
process. She hurt a lot from the feeling of being imperfect and somehow at
fault. She was actually surprised how common an occurrence a miscarriage is,
and if we manage to make it more normal to talk about it, and more normal to
expect that it can happen, I think we would make an important step in reducing
the pain.

~~~
sambe
I find quite a lot of people do not agree that it's important to talk about
it, for whatever reason. My guess is that overcoming the social stigma around
showing your emotions/sharing problems is mostly to blame. Perhaps most people
in my social group actually have had such problems and don't even feel
comfortable in the meta-conversation.

I often say things like "people should talk about this kind of stuff more
because it would help them through it". I obviously mean it in a general sense
(very much not trying to get specific people to talk about specific problems).
Responses vary from an insincere "yeah..." to the rather odd "you can't tell
people what to do".

~~~
davrosthedalek
It's not only the people who are directly affected who have to talk it
through. I think we all need to talk about these things, to make it more
normal. Talk about it before it happens. We all have a tendency to elevate any
misfortune, small and large, to be the biggest thing ever, and how can you
ever live through it.

(Edit: I'm not wanting to say that a miscarriage is a small misfortune. No,
it's not. But there are many many worse things which can go wrong.)

~~~
sambe
Definitely, but I still find others don't agree (or at least don't
enthusiastically agree).

------
217363
I had to go through this with my wife 2 years ago. I’ll never be the same. It
changed me. I was an exuberant person. When we first came to know about the
pregnancy we were so happy but it totally changed my outlook on life after the
loss. I did not know how to cope, I developed a deep interest in philosophy
and spirituality, spent next 1 year reading and thinking which helped but it
changed me as a person. We now have a 10 month old but we did not tell even
the close friends ( we live in a different country) until the day of delivery.
My blood pressure was 150/90 through the last trimester. I love my son and I
know it is supposed to be fun and exciting but but I live in fear.

------
balls187
I remember it was a week after the miscarriage, I was targeted and terminated
from my company, as part of a coverup.

Double whammy that lead to the worst ~3 years of my life.

~~~
pmiller2
Wow, that's horrible. I'm curious to hear more details if you feel comfortable
sharing.

~~~
balls187
I notified senior leadership that engineering was misreporting it's uptime
statistics. In effect breaching contracts with pretty much every major
customer, including state governments.

Leadership fixed the glitch.

------
nikkikayauthor
For my first miscarriage - no heartbeat, no detectable embryo - the idea of a
“failed pregnancy” somehow made the loss more manageable, like something that
never got off the ground. My next miscarriage, which occurred after seeing a
heartbeat, was devastating for both me and my husband. A year later I found
myself in the emergency room with my daughter, two days after I’d found out I
was pregnant a third time, and almost had a panic attack right then and there.
It was completely unexpected and really shone a light on how traumatic the
loss and the D&E afterward had been.

[https://medium.com/messy-mind/emergency-room-
flashbacks-871e...](https://medium.com/messy-mind/emergency-room-
flashbacks-871ee88d02a?source=friends_link&sk=8c35735fdf0144e79d8c9efa89c6a79d)

------
mattlondon
In case it helps any others in a similar situation:

My partner and I suffered from a miscarriage and then a seeming inability to
fall pregnant again. All of the tests we did came back fine - everyone just
said "keep trying" but eventually we started to see "unexplained infertility"
appearing in the medical notes which was crushing and terrifying.

To cut a long, emotionally painful, and expensive story short, we almost
accidentally found out my partner has some quirk in their immune system: NK
cells (CD16+, CD56+). This does not appear to be something that is routinely
checked for.

A quick consultation at a specialist consultant, a small number of some very
benign tablets along with 1 home injection (very cheap - perhaps £80/month)
and two months later - after literally years - we were naturally pregnant.

37 weeks so far and everything is completely ordinary and normal - a huge
relief compared to where we were several years ago.

If you are in a similar situation, please know that there may be a way out. It
is a very dark road, but there _can_ be light at the end of the tunnel. Talk
about the NK cells with your doctor and see what they say - the NHS in the UK
pooh-poohed it (despite being prepared to give us IVF at significant expense),
but it worked for us when going privately, and the consultant's waiting room
was full of pregnant women so we're not just a fluke I guess. I just hope that
oen day this enters the mainstream so that people can try it before IVF and
other invasive treatments.

If anyone wants to know the clinic we used in London, please email any user at
e43.xyz (catchall will pick it up) or reply here

------
acjohnson55
As someone who has two kids and hasn't experienced miscarriage, this thread is
a reminder of what a privilege that is. Even though miscarriage is
surprisingly prevalent (at least surprising in a culture where it's not spoken
of), I suspect the trauma isn't even carried. Thanks to everyone for sharing
difficult stories. Hopefully the rest of us can do our parts to not stigmatize
or be insensitive.

~~~
acjohnson55
(Edit: I meant to say, "evenly carried", as in evenly distributed.)

------
cs02rm0
My wife had one miscarriage, we're pretty robust but it was quite brutal,
friends have certainly had many more.

We had to wait a bit before trying again but not too long later had twins and
in an odd sort of way it seemed like that gave some balance to the situation.

------
myrryr
Would anything which is traumatic, be able to lead to long term post-traumatic
stress?

And miscarriages are certainly traumatic.

~~~
elil17
Yes. PTSD does not discriminate based on type of trauma. Car crashes, for
instance, are one of the most common events leading to PTSD.

~~~
pmiller2
Absolutely. Even though there's the perception that only military people get
PTSD, you are right, it does not discriminate. Moreover, the definition of
trauma is personal. That is, if it's traumatic to the individual, then it can
cause a post-traumatic stress reaction, no matter whether it would be a
traumatic event to anyone else.

~~~
ska
It's worse than a perception (that only front-line military people get PTSD),
it often takes the form of gate-keeping.

------
ezoe
Miscarriage probability is higher than people who never see the statistics
guessed, even for the people with the best age and other conditions(>10%).

Also it is said early occult miscarriage rate is 40%. It's early because less
than 1 week, it's occult because we don't realize it, no sign of pregnancy, so
we can't observe it most of the time.

The book I'm currently reading(The Vital Question) said that miscarriage rate
is high because zygote dies in case of inefficient mitonuclear match,
filtering the bad fits.

------
Empact
In some cultures it's common to provide funerals for stillborn babies. Perhaps
this part of the reason why.

[https://americanpregnancy.org/pregnancy-loss/stillborn-
survi...](https://americanpregnancy.org/pregnancy-loss/stillborn-surviving-
emotionally/)

------
gigatexal
I’ve a buddy whose wife just had her second miscarriage and it has rocked
them. I try to be supportive but I have no idea what it is like. I feel
terrible for them

~~~
nikkikayauthor
Check in on them and see how they’re doing, or just offer an ear if they want
to talk. If they’re anything like My husband and me they don’t have many
people to talk to about it - and many won’t bring it up because they feel
awkward or uncomfortable. Knowing someone is there, aware, and thinking about
them can make the difference.

~~~
gigatexal
Thank you — I will.

------
colechristensen
Things like this lead me to wonder: how is the experience of trauma affected
by cultural practice, myth, ideas, etc. Certainly similar experiences can lead
to different outcomes from ignorance to indifference to trauma in different
individuals. Why is that and how could traumatic outcomes be changed? Should
they be?

It is a touchy subject because it is easy to interpret as invalidating deep
personal feelings, but that isn't the goal at all.

Would, say, young people drafted for war from a modern Spartan society
experience the same trauma in war as young people drafted from Berkeley? I am
sure that individuals from both sides would have experiences across the
spectrum, but would the distribution differ?

I do think that modern Western society goes to extremes to prevent children
from experiencing or even knowing about the harsh realities of the world and
it's not hard to conclude that when the sheltered youth are dumped into
reality (considerably more) serious mental illness follows as the world they
were prepared for and the world they live in are very different.

~~~
humanrebar
> Would, say, young people drafted for war from a modern Spartan society
> experience the same trauma in war as young people drafted from Berkeley?

Most of Sparta was slaves, and the upper class participated in murder of
slaves as a rite of passage, so I doubt there is a lot in common.

~~~
ajross
Also, ancient Spartans were hardly immune to PTSD. They were just much less
likely to be treated for the symptoms in any real way (or, frankly, to survive
the events that cause them). There's really no good evidence that PTSD is a
modern thing at all.

What's really, and ironically, happening here is that "Sparta" is a movie
utopia us pathetic moderners have invented to mask our anxieties behind an
ideal about Real Men who spent their lives kicking Persians into giant pits
instead of dealing with credit overdrafts (and, occasionally, PTSD).

------
teekert
Please, forgive me if I come across as harsh or insulting. I cannot imagine
what you went through and I wish you never had to.

Some time ago I talked to my neighbor (76 y/o woman), while my wife was
pregnant, she happily told me that she had 6 kids and 2 miscarriages. Like it
was a very normal thing. I asked and she said it was just part of it, the
fetuses were probably not healthy to begin with. She seemed of the opinion
that it was just part of life and it didn't seem to affect her. I didn't ask
further but I do notice myself that once you start taking about miscarriages
or, in our case, difficulties getting pregnant, many people went through the
same experiences. And certain experiences seem commonplace. On me that has a
consoling effect.

Do you think it would have helped if you would have known about the
possibility in advance? Or had friends go through the same and society in
general being much more open about these things? My mother in law told me
about her miscarriage only when our son was 2. I think it would have
(hypothetically) helped us be more open and accepting if we would have known
in advance.

Thank you for being so open about this on the jungle that is the internet. It
takes a lot of courage to come back and read replies.

~~~
HappyDreamer
I imagine it's different, if _for example_ one first gets a child that
survives, then another, and then, the 3rd time, there's a miscarriage. Then,
that's easier to get over, because you can be happy for and focus on the
children you have already?

Compared to if one has tried just once, and that was a miscarriage.

~~~
nikkikayauthor
I am that first scenario. I had 2 healthy kids followed by 2 miscarriages. I
can’t speak to easier or harder, but I do know that even the 2 losses I had in
quick succession (one in March and one in August of the same year) affected me
in profoundly different ways. I think they’re all different and terrible in
their own way.

~~~
HappyDreamer
I'm sorry to hear that. Thanks for replying. I think I will never know how
that feels like.

------
circlefavshape
FWIW not everyone is traumatised. We had a couple of misses (one very early,
one around 11 weeks iirc) before our first, and another between first and
second. It was sad at the time, but that was all

------
mac_was
I wonder if women after having an abortion might feel the same? Are there any
women who can deny or share thoughts?

BTW, it seems weird that the article is treated as discovery...

------
irrational
One thing I didn't see in the article was how a woman might be affected
differently if she already had multiple children. My wife miscarried at about
12 weeks, but we already had a bunch of kids so she was basically like, "Oh
well" and was fine the next day. But I imagine if it had been our first, or
maybe second, that she would have been affected much differently.

~~~
growlist
I think it depends on the lateness as well though. Sometimes the baby dies in
the womb and this is discovered before birth, yet the mother still has to go
through a full labour, all the while knowing it's for nothing. Pretty
horrible.

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
I’m really glad we decided to have kids when we did and didn’t wait longer. I
was completely unaware of miscarriage rates when we started. Even for healthy
age groups it’s more than 10%.

It’s much higher than I would have thought, and rises quickly after 32, just
when many people are hitting their professional stride, which is extremely
unfortunate.

~~~
lazyasciiart
It's far higher than that, but most miscarriages occur so early that in the
past, or today if not actively checking if you are pregnant, a woman wouldn't
have known it happened. This is obviously difficult to study, but current
thought is that miscarriages occur in 30-50% of fertilizations, and with more
and more tracking, people are more and more likely to know about it.

~~~
sparker72678
This was our experience, having a positive pregnancy test and then my wife
getting what we would have thought was just a late, heavy period shortly
afterward.

Early testing is nice, but with subsequent attempts to get pregnant we chose
to wait quite a bit longer after a missed period before doing a pregnancy
test, because we didn't want to go through the roller coaster again.

------
cm2012
My wife and sister both had ectopic pregnancies, which really sucked. My wife
was really hit by it emotionally.

~~~
jammygit
I know somebody who had an ectopic. She had to more or less abort it, which
made her feel unbelievable bad. For years afterwards. I’m sorry to hear it
happened to people close to you twice

~~~
MandieD
I hope no one suggested that there was any sort of decision, other than by
which method she preferred for it to be ended. Anyone who even implies that
waiting it out is a more moral option is either stupid or cruel.

------
growlist
I'd venture that the overly systematised, euphemism-happy coldness of the
medical establishment is part of the problem. PTSD actually means being upset
for a very long time. A clump of cells actually means a baby (but we can't say
that because...). Organised support services are probably inferior to support
from a strong network of loving family, friends and community (but latter
doesn't exist because of social disintegration). A holistic approach would
support the family as one, rather than treating the mother as a separate
specimen to be processed.

------
quickthrower2
Can the same happen for planned abortions? Is it connected to the desire to
have the baby or a physiological thing that happens even if you aborted?

------
mindfulgeek
ive tried several times and cannot seem to comment. I think that speaks more
to the impact of miscarriage than my words could. I’ve had 5. They’ve all been
different. You are a mother the moment you are pregnant regardless of how
long. There is an unspeakable, unbreakable connection between a mother and her
children. That connections dies slowly over time, not the moment of loss. For
me, every miscarriage is something I still process and heal from. They are all
my children though they’ve never had names nor did I ever meet them. I felt
them and hosted them and would have given anything for them as I do my other
children.

------
kgwgk
For sale: baby shoes, never worn

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_sale:_baby_shoes,_never_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_sale:_baby_shoes,_never_worn)

------
microcolonel
Where is the study itself? They link to the "earlier, smaller study" from
2016, but not the one they're writing about.

------
gwbas1c
Don't forget that miscarriages effect the spouse too.

~~~
anunamoose
Not sure why you're being downvoted. As the partner of someone who had a
miscarriage I was happy to see someone thought of me as well. I definitely
also have PTSD from it. I remember my partner being in pain and bleeding and
experiencing the sadness of loss on top of all of it. I was scared and lonely
and I feel and felt helpless.

~~~
gwbas1c
OP:

> Not sure why you're being downvoted

I find that people on Hacker News tend to downvote any kind of short comments.
When I came across this thread, it was empty and I didn't like seeing an empty
thread, so I wanted to say _something_ to break the ice. (At this point, the
post has 18 points, so clearly cooler heads prevailed.)

My wife tells stories about seeing her father suddenly start sobbing when she
came across items that her parents bought for their first pregnancy.

Later, when we had a miscarriage, (fortunately very early,) my boss told me
about his. Even though we were on the phone, I could tell he was holding back
tears.

Thankfully we haven't had serious fertility problems. What helped in our case
was, throughout my life, hearing about my parents' miscarriage, sister's
miscarriage, cousin's miscarriage. I knew it was normal.

------
marbm
I read this as "Marriage can lead to 'long-term post-traumatic stress'"

------
scarejunba
Considering the infant mortality rate in the 1800s, did practically every
family have PTSD?

~~~
IfOnlyYouKnew
I believe you assume the answer to be "no".

But I'd say it's "yes", and that may be part of the reason for the prevalence
of war at the time (causing even more trauma).

~~~
scarejunba
No, it wasn't rhetorical. I think the answer may just be 'yes'. Wonder if
we'll look at historical figures with different eyes if most are likely to be
PTSD victims. And we could see what the effects were on societies living like
that.

------
throwawaybbb
Working on an artificial womb because my wife went through the same. Pregnancy
is barbaric the sooner we stop forcing half the world to do it the better for
everyone.

~~~
rblatz
I know my wife would not opt for an artificial womb. We are expecting next
month and had some difficulties conceiving.

We talked about potentially doing a surrogate, an option that she shot down
unless it was the very last resort. She wanted to carry our child, and
experience everything that pregnancy has to offer. Not every day is easy, but
she truly enjoys this phase of her and our daughter’s life.

~~~
throwawaybbb
And no one will stop her. Just how today some women elect to give birth
without anesthetics. And others do it at home.

------
aaron695
"1 in 13 children in sub-Saharan Africa died before reaching her or his fifth
birthday" (2018)

You can say that's Whataboutism, but for most of history losing a child was
what happened to most people.

So calling the sadness and awful experience from a miscarriage 'long-term
post-traumatic stress' might be technically true one in six times if
physiologists say so (not sure they have, the BBC has), to me that just
further stigmatizes what is a sad but common occurrence no one talks about and
implies we all live with trauma which can't be healthy to keep shoving down
our throats.

~~~
sparker72678
> for most of history losing a child was what happened to most people

Even if true, that doesn't mean it wasn't heartbreaking and didn't have long-
term effects on the family.

~~~
aaron695
Trauma and PTSD like suicide is contagious.

Giving it to women and their partners who have a miscarriage or the loss of a
child is also heartbreaking.

I'm not saying don't talk about, I'm just saying calling it trauma and PTSD
will irrevocably harm some people and possibly hurt more than it will help.

I don't think the media should lie even if it harms people. But equally I
don't think the story here is a story that justifies the harm it might cause,
they still can tell the truth responsibly if the BBC just took care and didn't
chase clicks.

~~~
tptacek
This is a deeply silly analysis. PTSD is a fairly specific and in many ways
_physical_ set of reactions to trauma; if you've had no personal exposure to
it, you'd be unlikely to describe it convincingly to a professional, let alone
somehow incubate it in your own mind simply by a suggested association.

It's been suggested that PSTD can be "contagious", but the connection between
"PTSD" and a specific trauma (ie: the belief that some specific trauma "is
supposed to" cause PTSD) isn't the vector.

If something causes PTSD, it causes PTSD. Pretending otherwise doesn't prevent
it.

------
nickthemagicman
I think it's fascinating how disconnected we are from death in modern times.

The average life span in the 1700s was 35 years old.

1 out of 100 MOTHERS died during childbirth centuries ago.

You could get an infection and be dead in a week because there were no
antibiotics.

Spanish flu killed 10 percent of the worlds population, the black plagues
death rate was far far higher than that.

Cholera, red fever, polio, there were so many and such variety of different
ways to die.

Death was a constant specter and I imagine life was considered a little
cheaper? I don't know.

I don't know if people had constant endless PTSD back then or if PTSD is our
natural state, or if PTSD is contextual, and nowdays we live in extremely pro
mental health times.

Either way its testament to how amazing modern medicine has become and how
valuable everyones lives are nowdays.

~~~
_pmf_
One take would be that nowadays, you're more likely to survive stuff that
nature did not prepare you to survive.

~~~
nickthemagicman
That's a hot take as medicine has also made us healthier!

