Chrissy Teigen’s Pregnancy Loss Shows Us Why We Need To Talk More About Miscarriages

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!

Why is there an awkward silence around miscarriages?

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.

Just try to be there for them

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.

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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

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