Until we shift the culture around baby loss, women will still feel abandoned, no matter how many times we say the taboo is being broken
Taboo is an overused word in the media, isn’t it? Miscarriage, in particular, is often described as one of the “last taboos”, although I’ve also seen the label attached to menopause, periods, post-natal depression, finances, pelvic organ prolapse and male incontinence. When Carrie Johnson announced last weekend that she was expecting another baby this Christmas following a miscarriage that she described as “heartbreaking”, the word surfaced again in headlines: “Carrie’s rainbow baby helps shatter the miscarriage taboo”.
I understand the impulse to reach for this kind of language. When I had my first miscarriage, four years ago, it was as if I’d walked into a cave of white noise. Leaving the early pregnancy unit that day with nothing to show for my three-month pregnancy but a pair of hospital-issue paper pants and a flimsy information pamphlet, I felt numb and empty – emptied – and tried to recall a single conversation I’d had about this. The best I came up with was a few lines in an old episode of Sex and the City.
