1 in 2... or 3 in 5 ?

Last Monday we attended a bereaved parents service hosted by the Grief & Loss Center of RMH. They are in about the 20th year of holding this event. The gentle words that were spoken about our babies and our feelings brought back the emotions like our m/c happened weeks ago instead of months. We took an ornament that read "Hope" and placed it on the tree there in memory of our baby. We did not name her but I had a feeling it was a girl. If you are at RMH and would like to see the bereaved parents' tree, it is in the Treatment Center. It was comforting in a way to be able to see faces of others who have also lost babies from miscarriage or still birth (since the support group has not been meeting). We spoke to a family who had 2 living boys with them and the mother had experienced 4 miscarriages. They attend the service every year.

Since then, I started researching more statistics about miscarriage, because I started to realize how many miscarriages seem to happen in the first pregnancy. I already knew that 1 in 5 or possibly 1 in 3 pregnancies end in miscarriage. (Could be as high as 40% because many happen early, even before a positive pregnancy test, many times without the woman knowing she was pregnant.) But a startling 50%-60% of first pregnancies end in miscarriage, which includes the estimate of women who don't know they were pregnant. That number comes from http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art12024.asp. And according to HopeXchange: "approximately 90% of women who have had one miscarriage, go on to have a normal pregnancy and a healthy baby next time." Yes, this is good news!

But a lesson here: Be armed with this knowledge, but please, don't quote statistics to someone who has had a recent loss. While it's common, statistically it is most likely not common for her or the couple you know. In time they may take some comfort in their own way in the numbers. Let them ask the questions in their own time. Everyone grieves in different ways and different time frames. When it's fresh, they most need you to acknowledge her individual loss, not everyone else's.