Guest Author - Krissi Danielsson

It's commonly said, among all of us who have miscarried, that you have to go through a miscarriage to really understand what it's like. People in our lives desperately want to say the right thing, but find themselves at a loss because they have no clue of what we're going through when we lose our babies.

One might think that physicians and learned researchers, who deal with miscarriages all the time, would understand. After all, these professionals have an in-depth understanding of what we go through at the physical level and the mechanics of how a miscarriage happens...although they're often short on the reasons why. Yet, for some reason, the professional world still fails to understand one of the key underpinnings of the miscarriage event: that the miscarriage involves the loss of a child.

(Yes, it is true that miscarriages do not equal the loss of an already born child or even a late pregnancy loss, but rather than viewing one loss as more tragic or intense than another, I tend to view them as different kinds of losses.)

But the distinction that a miscarriage is the loss of a child is important. This issue came up as I am reading the oft-praised book Coming to Term by Jon Cohen. The book has a fascinating journalistic review of the miscarriage studies that have been done, and it has a lot of good points. I am finding myself irked by the supposedly reassuring statistics that even after three, four, or more miscarriages, most women will carry to term without treatment. (Look here for more detailed review of Coming to Term in the coming weeks.)

Yes, there may be some validity to these statistics. Yet, too often doctors seem to use them as an excuse to not help women. When this happens, the underlying message comes across as that the doctors believe that we should find comfort in these statistics and therefore not worry about the fact that we've lost a baby because in all likelihood we won't lose another one. We should not seek treatment for miscarriages because statistics suggest we won't have another one.

For starters, by being recurrent miscarriers, we've often already fallen out of statistical favor. When statistics suggested we shouldn't be in this position in the first place, statistics start to lose their power. After all, if I can be that 1 in 100 women that has three miscarriages in a row, why should I feel comfort that I'll be one of those 6 out of 10 (hardly an overwhelmingly reassuring number) that will carry to term without treatment?

But more importantly, the reason I hate these statistics so much is that they are used to justify an exceedingly cavalier attitude toward miscarriage. Doctors and researchers seem to want us to view pregnancy as a roll of the dice. And it doesn't bother them to just shrug off a failed roll and have us pick up the dice again. We are required to go through a certain number of failed rolls before we can get any help with our throwing technique or have our dice examined for problems (to continue the metaphor). Yes, even with if we keep rolling the dice, even if they're flawed, we might roll the right number eventually. But for me, each time I get pregnant, that is a child to me. It is not dice.

Most women cannot lose a child with the same nonchalance as we can pick up dice and roll again. Each failed roll represents a little person who will never call us Mommy. It takes great emotional strength to pick up those dice and try again. Each time involves a period of grieving and deep scarring to the heart, sometimes never to heal. For medical professionals to expect us to wave that grief away without even doing us the simple human courtesy of taking a quick look at the dice to see if the edges are filed, and to pat us on the head and give us condescending looks while throwing statistics at us to say that we should just have faith that we'll roll the right number eventually, is insulting. To say the least. Yes the dice may be fine for many of us, and it's just chance bad luck that we don't roll the right number. But we deserve at least the courtesy of checking. Especially when you keep having this fear that your dice truly are fixed against you and that you'd just need to switch them in order to stop failing your rolls and having your heart casually ripped to pieces every time you pick them up. It's easier to pick those dice up again if you know the odds truly aren't against you and you're not the one holding fixed dice. Especially when most people seem to have dice that are fixed in favor of a healthy pregnancy.

So now I've used the gambling metaphor to death. But I am sure you all understand the point. I just wanted to get that out there for thought.

Note And by the way, I'm working on a little miscarriage book of my own. I would love to hear from any and all readers with something to say about the miscarriage experience. If you'd be willing to answer an email or phone interview, please send me a note. I'll also be contacting some of you who have emailed me in the past to ask if you'd like to participate.