Livestream Recap: Personal Stories and Policy Gaps Around Miscarriage
I livestreamed my discussion with Leah Libresco Sargeant about our personal experiences with the medical community while enduring miscarriage. You can listen to or watch the replay here:
Or, if you prefer, here is a summary of our conversation.
Key Takeaways
- The medical community’s approach to miscarriage is inconsistent and sometimes shockingly dismissive.
- Parents’ emotional needs during miscarriage are real, diverse, and little acknowledged.
- We need to work to change how society in general and the medical community in particular handle miscarriage.
Summary
In this livestream, Leah and I talked about our personal experiences with the medical community during our miscarriages.
My first loss, Scout, was a twin, which means my body reabsorbed the remains. It was a confusing experience, and I struggled to navigate a bureaucratic and discouraging system to get mental health support. The lack of ritual and closure made the grief harder. My second loss, Hank, was a missed miscarriage, and the experience underscored multiple systemic failures. Even though I knew I wanted Hank’s remains tested and then released to us, I encountered multiple hurdles as medical staff repeatedly gave me incorrect and contradictory information about the process. I was ultimately able to get both testing and release because I’m persistent and aggressive and I had friends helping me. But it’s easy to imagine how parents without prior knowledge, personal assertiveness, or help from informal networks would not fare as well.
Leah also shared her experiences with prenatal loss. One miscarriage began on a city bus, leaving her bleeding heavily, begging businesses for a bathroom, and fearing what she might find in her clothing. In another loss, directly after she learned her baby had died, the doctor scolded her for crying. She miscarried at her childhood home during Thanksgiving, improvising ways to search for the remains while guests arrived. In total Leah has had six losses, and she talks about how parents are given neither guidance nor space to grieve; miscarriage often forces them to manage their baby’s death alone.
Both Leah and I talked about the need for systemic change. In the face of these problems, SPL has created a proposed hospital protocol for disposition of miscarriage remains. We also discuss the need for medical staff to receive better training on emotional and practical support. Normalizing these conversations and, through them, advocating for compassionate infrastructure could ease the suffering of countless families.
Additional Resources
- SPL’s suggested hospital protocol: Fetal Remains Disposition and Patient Support Policy
- My publication in the journal Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics: When miscarriage is an emotional crisis, medical professionals can help.
- Related academic research:
- Providing emotional care for early pregnancy loss: Development and evaluation of a new training module for healthcare providers (2025)
- The Language of First-Trimester Nonviable Pregnancy: Patient-Reported Preferences and Clarity (2019)
- Creation of interdisciplinary guidelines for care of women presenting to the emergency department with pregnancy loss (2017)
- Proof of life: a protocol for pregnant women who experience pre-20-week perinatal loss (2010)
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