Early Miscarriage & How to Cope
Losing a baby at any stage of pregnancy is hard, whether it is your first baby or fourth baby. Whether you lost the baby at 6 weeks or 20 weeks.
However, I want to talk about early miscarriage, pregnancy loss before 12 weeks.
I chose to talk about this because people sometimes assume that if you lose a baby before 12 weeks it isn’t as bad, or as traumatic because in some eyes, it wasn’t a baby it was a dot, a heartbeat, a blob on the screen. Just because it wasn’t a formed baby or just because it was a fetus, it wasn’t classed as an actual “baby”!
There is very little support or information available for women who suffer a miscarriage. In these difficult times, it is made even harder. That because you may have to go into the hospital with a bleed for a scan, on your own. To then be told that there is no heartbeat, there is no baby. This is very scary, very upsetting and traumatic, especially if you are without your partner.
The main thing to remember is that miscarriage happens to around 1 in 3 women.
The cause is often unknown. You will be told to rest; and once your periods have returned to wait a couple of cycles to start trying again. Obviously, if you have more than 3/4 miscarriages, it is at this point that an investigation will be carried out. But again, sometimes there is no known cause.
Pregnancy after a miscarriage, is then even scarier, because you have already had a miscarriage and you often feel you can’t enjoy the pregnancy, because of your previous loss or losses, this is totally normal and understandable. You are on tenterhooks waiting for it to go wrong again or any slight pain or discomfort causes you distress. Waiting for your 12-week scan seems to take an eternity. And also you not wanting to look at the screen, just in case it has happened again! All in all, it is frightening.
To say to a woman who has had a miscarriage, “at least it happened early on, it would have been worse later”, or “at least you can try again”. “There was obviously something wrong, imagine if you had carried it to full term and there was something wrong?”. All of this is insensitive and completely the wrong thing to say. None of this is going to help the woman to feel comforted. She has lost a baby, something that she had longed for, or had strived for, for a long time, something she had planned the future with. This baby was precious to her and she loved it wholeheartedly.
If you have recently had a miscarriage, it is important to allow yourself time to grieve, to talk about your baby, to cry, to sleep, to take things easy for a couple of weeks.
Eat healthily, have time for yourself.
“Guilt”. Something you feel afterward, this is very common. “Did I cause it to happen?”. “Did I eat or drink the wrong thing?”. “Or did I do the wrong exercises, or do too much?”. Unless you were told you were having a high-risk pregnancy and not to exercise or had absolute contraindications, there is no reason not to exercise. It is very rarely something you did that would cause a miscarriage.
Obviously, if you have one or more miscarriages and you were wanting to exercise either to start a program or continue to exercise, then obviously speak to your GP to get clearance. Exercising will help keep you fit, active and stronger for a healthy pregnancy. Exercise is not likely to be the cause of miscarriage, as long as you are not getting overheated or overexerting yourself and staying hydrated and are not doing anything that will cause you to fall on your abdomen.
It can be scary if you are pregnant and had losses previously to know which exercises you should be doing and what you shouldn’t be doing. My programs will help you stay fit and active safely during your pregnancy.
