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Chrissy Teigen is one of the million women who suffer from miscarriage every year and yet, why is there stigma around talking about it?
Recently, supermodel and TV personality Chrissy Teigen shared a hear-wrenching post about her miscarriage. As always, people took to social media to call her names and pass judgements about the right way to grieve. But it isn’t social media that I want to write about today, it is the stigma associated with pregnancy loss.
Incidentally, October is also pregnancy and infant loss month. This just makes it all the more important to raise awareness about this devastating event. One that affects almost ten million women in India every year!
Every religion has elaborate customs associated with death, a period of mourning. But when it comes to the loss of pregnancy or infant birth loss, all that remains is awkward silences, stigma, and shame.
Loss of pregnancy is often associated with extreme physical pain and almost always with intense emotional pain. This is enough to permeate every fibre of your being. Yet, no one wants to talk about it. It makes people uncomfortable.
Every person has their own way of grieving. While some want to grieve in solitude and may never want to talk about it. Others may be able to talk only when they have a semblance of acceptance. It is also perfectly okay to share grief in its raw, crude form without mixing it up with melancholy or wisdom, just as Chrissy did.
I wish no one goes through this trauma, but if you know someone who did, reach out. Ask them if they are okay and would they like to talk about their loss.
Be empathetic, it is fine if you do not understand the pain, it is perfectly okay to not offer any solutions. Just listen. Because listening is what most parents are devoid of while they try to tackle their pain. And in many cases, the wounds remain raw for an entire lifetime.
Ending this with a little poem I wrote a while back –
Two faint lines on a test strip & my life changed
Ultrasound reverberated with the sound of two heart beast, my own skipped a beat
Panic, anxiety, joy, hope
Excessive movements & I wondered is this sibling rivalry or sibling revelry going on
Twins!!
Double trouble, they said
Double the love, I thought
Fate can be twisted though
My babies spared me from all the trouble
I just wish I could have held them that fateful day
Had not let my own pain and agony overpower me
For even though my babies were stillborn, they were still born.
Picture credits: Chrissy Teigen’s Instagram page
Dentist, writer, corporate healthcare professional. In my earlier avatar, I taught budding dentists and published a book on my subject expertise. A ‘sabbatical’ from work to take care of my super-energetic baby girl reignited read more...
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Shows like Indian Matchmaking only further the argument that women must adhere to social norms without being allowed to follow their hearts.
When Netflix announced that Indian Matchmaking (2020-present) would be renewed for a second season, many of us hoped for the makers of the show to take all the criticism they faced seriously. That is definitely not the case because the show still continues to celebrate regressive patriarchal values.
Here are a few of the gendered notions that the show propagates.
A mediocre man can give himself a 9.5/10 and call himself ‘the world’s most eligible bachelor’, but an independent and successful woman must be happy with receiving just 60-70% of what she feels she deserves.
Darlings makes some excellent points about domestic violence . For such a movie to not follow through with a resolution that won't be problematic, is disappointing.
I watched Darlings last weekend, staying on top of its release on Netflix. It was a long-awaited respite from the recent flicks. I wanted badly to jump into its praise and will praise it, for something has to be said for the powerhouse performances it is packed with. But I will not be able to in a way that I really had wanted to.
I wanted to say that this is a must-watch on domestic violence that I stand behind and a needed and nuanced social portrayal. But unfortunately, I can’t. For I found Darlings to be deeply problematic when it comes to the portrayal of domestic violence and how that should be dealt with.
Before we rush to the ‘you must be having a problem because a man was hit’ or ‘much worse happens to women’ conclusions, that is not what my issue is. I have seen the praises and criticisms, and the criticisms of criticisms. I know, from having had close associations with non-profits and activists who fight domestic violence not just in India but globally, that much worse happens to women. I have written a book with case studies and statistics on that. Neither do I have any moral qualms around violence getting tackled with violence (that will be another post some day).