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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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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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