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When Joy Turns to Grief: Understanding Pregnancy Loss · Talking FACS

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  Welcome to Talking FACS. What you need to know about family,
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  food, finance, and fitness.
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  This nationally recognized award-winning podcast is hosted by the University
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  of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Program.
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  Our educators share research knowledge with individuals, families,
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  and communities to improve quality of life.
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  Hello, and welcome to Talking FACs. I'm your guest host, Dr.
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  Courtney Luecking, Extension Specialist for Maternal and Child Nutrition.
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  Today, I'm thrilled to host Dr. Aubrey Jones.
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  Dr. Jones is an assistant professor in the College of Social Work at the University of Kentucky.
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  She holds an affiliate faculty position in the Appalachian Studies Program at
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  the University of Kentucky.
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  Her research addresses family well-being, and she is primarily interested in
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  maternal mental health.
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  Dr. Jones also researches to better understand the needs of and social work's
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  role in rural communities.
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  Welcome, Dr. Jones.
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  Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to have you because today we're going to
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  be discussing a deeply personal and oftentimes rarely talked about experience of pregnancy loss.
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  And I know it can be difficult to talk about this, but can be a really important
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  step towards healing. And so I'm so pleased that you can guide us through this conversation today.
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  Absolutely. It is a deeply personal topic, like you said.
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  Yeah. So let's get started by talking about the different types of pregnancy
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  loss and how they're typically experienced by families.
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  Sure. Yeah. So there's typically it's broken down into miscarriage,
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  which happens before 20 weeks gestation, and then stillbirth,
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  which happens 28 weeks and beyond.
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  And they're experienced differently, like most things, by different people.
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  With miscarriage, so pregnancy loss before 20 weeks, that is often a really,
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  can be a really silent grief if you're thinking about people who are very early
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  in pregnancy when a lot of pregnancy loss occurs usually before the 14 week mark.
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  A lot of folks haven't even discussed that they are pregnant with family or friends.
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  And so to experience a loss can be really isolating.
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  Either the person experiencing the loss has to disclose that they are first
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  pregnant and then also disclose the loss or a lot of women choose not to discuss
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  the loss at all, which can be very isolating.
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  And then with stillbirth, after 20 weeks, you know, that is...
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  A lot of folks have identified that it just feels like a really stigmatized
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  experience and that people don't know how to talk about it or don't want to
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  talk about it or shy away from it, whatever the case may be.
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  So I think for most people, it is a very isolating experience.
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  I, that resonates with me because I'm thinking of some family and friends who
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  it's only maybe months or years later that I find out that they've experienced pregnancy loss.
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  And so to speak to that, how isolated they must have felt in that moment,
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  and what they must have navigated to feel comfortable to share that ultimately.
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  And also thinking of celebrities sometimes. There's a musician artist who I
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  followed and she experienced a stillbirth and has publicly shared and actually
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  recently testified in front of Congress about her experience.
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  But to use that platform to try to break down maybe some of those barriers,
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  like you mentioned, with stigma and isolation.
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  And so you talk about, I heard you say the word grief, and I heard you talk
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  a lot about isolation. I'd love to hear more about some of the common emotional
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  responses that parents may experience after a loss.
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  Yeah, that's a great question. And noting that it's parents,
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  right? It's both the person who is carrying the pregnancy and the partner who
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  experienced that grief.
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  Most commonly, people will experience grief, anxiety, depression.
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  Up to about 50% of people will experience one of those.
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  And it typically is the most affected within the first like four weeks of a
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  loss. but I think it's really important to think about long-term.
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  If you know somebody who's experienced a loss, you know that it's affected them,
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  forever. It never goes away.
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  And I think pregnancy loss, the grief that comes along with pregnancy loss,
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  is just like any other type of grief. It may slow down. It may not be fully
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  present one day and really present the next.
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  But it's always just kind of there. You just work with this constant grief is
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  what I've heard from many people who've experienced pregnancy loss.
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  And that even years later that loss is still there and,
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  one thing that we think about with pregnancy loss is depending on what it happens
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  with grief and loss rituals can be something that's really helpful,
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  in mourning getting through the morning process so rituals like having a memorial
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  or a burial service can be very helpful with grief With pregnancy loss,
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  depending on when you lose the pregnancy, it's not always possible to engage in that type of ritual.
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  And so you might see different types of rituals come out, such as I have several
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  friends who around the month of their loss will have a cake and celebrate.
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  The baby that never made it both sides but it's just a nice way to recognize
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  that number of their family that they didn't get to meet but still working through
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  some of that grief and loss.
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  And i think that grief and loss and anxiety and depression is also present in
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  subsequent pregnancies,
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  and the expanding the family or or maybe you never choose to expand your family
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  afterwards, but that grief stays with me.
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  So, you know, I have friends who've had several miscarriages and,
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  just working with them, talking with them, as well as the research that I do
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  around this area, it constantly affects them and goes into that next step when
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  you see creating more anxiety.
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  Sometimes some attachment issues of just feeling like you can't get too attached
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  to the idea of being pregnant because what if that happens again?
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  And so I say all that to normalize it for folks that who have maybe experienced
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  this in assignments, they're not alone, and that what they might be experiencing is very common.
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  The complexity of what you just described, I imagine that can be,
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  validating for someone to then hear you say this is normal to experience,
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  these you know the guilt the isolation just anxiety depression all of these,
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  things and so I appreciate you sharing that message for the audience that's listening.
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  We're just talking about kind of the person carrying the baby.
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  And I think that's where we maybe naturally tend to direct our energy and efforts
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  when thinking about supporting someone who has experienced pregnancy loss.
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  But I heard you say that it affects the whole family.
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  And so if you could talk to us a little bit more about what,
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  how loss might affect the partner or siblings or even extended family,
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  anyone who's really close in that relationship.
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  Right. So partners, I think, in a lot of ways are overlooked when it comes to,
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  grief around experiencing pregnancy loss.
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  We look to partners a lot to help support the person who is carrying the pregnancy.
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  And so a partner typically is carrying the burden of having lost a child while also having to,
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  provide support for somebody that they also deeply care about and then together navigating that.
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  And I think it's very common, I notice this in myself, when I know somebody
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  experiencing a loss, it's really easy for me to go to them and try to help them
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  through that loss while overlooking their partner.
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  But partners and family members are really as effective, especially partners.
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  And I think siblings, too, depending on how far along you might have been in
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  the pregnancy and how much the siblings were aware or not aware of the pregnancy.
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  And I think this looks different for every family, how you navigate that as a family.
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  If you have other children who are aware, like I mentioned, I have a few friends
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  who have experienced a loss.
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  One who experienced a stillbirth around 24 weeks and she and her children and
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  spouse all celebrate that baby's.
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  Birthday of the day that they delivered the baby and buried the baby but,
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  it has turned into something of like a loving ceremony for,
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  that family and it and it appears to be very healing for everybody involved
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  but again breathes us different for everyone in the way that we move through
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  it is going to look correct.
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  And I think as an outsider, being able to recognize how that grief doesn't affect the whole family is,
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  in my opinion, one of the best things that we can do for everybody experiencing loss.
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  Yeah. So let's talk about what are some of the ways that we can support families
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  who have experienced a loss?
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  Yeah. I know I keep saying it's different for everyone, right?
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  But I think that's just it. Brief looks different for everyone.
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  And it's going to be different depending on the relationship you have.
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  And there's things that work really well for some and things that don't work well for others.
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  And I think being able to come at supporting people with,
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  the best intent and just knowing them and what works for them and having open
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  conversations with folks about it as well.
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  And, you know, I think one of the things that we've done in my friend circle
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  or other friends who've experienced pregnancy loss is just doing a meal tree,
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  because we wanted our friend to be able to recover from her DNC,
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  and not have to worry about making food for her other children and for her spouse
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  to also not have to worry about leaking food.
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  It's just one of those easy things that we can do to support people.
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  You can drop it off at the doorstep so that they don't have to feel like they
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  need to entertain you, but just a loving way to show up.
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  And, you know, I've heard from friends as well as research participants that
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  being able to talk to somebody about the loss is really, really helpful.
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  And that a lot of experiences have been that once you lose a pregnancy,
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  people don't want to talk about.
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  Because it's natural to not know what to say or how to talk about it, right?
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  But most of the women that I've spoken to who've had a pregnancy loss do want
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  to talk about it and want somebody to acknowledge that they were pregnant.
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  They were carrying a child who did experience this pain and this loss and to
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  have somebody else validate it or be able to listen to them.
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  You know i think for most most people who,
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  become pregnant there's a lot
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  of hope and looking towards the future and thinking and daydreaming about,
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  what life is going to look like and when you experience pregnancy loss you then
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  have to also experience the loss of this life that you imagined.
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  And so having people who can sit with that and hear you talk about it can be
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  really Like from a provider standpoint, I think about our medical doctors,
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  they, you know, do incredible work every day.
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  And I think there's just little things within the medical facilities that can
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  be done to help as well. And social work, that's my field.
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  But from my practical standpoint, with doctors and nurses, it's just double
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  checking that chart before somebody comes in, double-checking and knowing if
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  they've experienced a loss and checking in with them,
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  mentally about how they're handling that loss or if they have a new pregnancy
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  after a loss, how that loss might be affecting their current pregnancy.
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  Just small little details like that, making sure that you know what procedure
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  they're there for that day. Are they either there for a DNC or are they there
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  for a prenatal visit and not mixing those things up?
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  For social workers, I'm really passionate about this as a social worker who
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  works in this field, but I think we need more social workers who have experience and training with,
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  helping people navigate pregnancy loss and just maternal mental health in general.
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  But I would encourage social workers if you find yourselves,
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  well, you will find yourself as a social worker working with pregnant families and just,
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  getting some additional training in helping people navigate grief and loss around
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  pregnancy because you will inevitably find yourself in that role,
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  whether you're in the healthcare
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  field or in private practice or in child welfare.
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  You're not gonna get away from that and being able to help someone sit with
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  that grief and help navigate it is incredibly important as a social worker and you just need more,
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  to yeah such an important life skill i think sometimes until we've been through
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  something that exposes us to what grief truly feels like and and moving through
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  it it's kind of hard to wrap,
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  wrap your mind and brain around.
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  Well, this has been really insightful.
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  So to kind of summarize what I've heard you say so far is that pregnancy loss,
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  is common and it can lead people to feel very isolated in their experience.
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  But by and it's not it doesn't only affect the person who carried the pregnancy
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  but the partner and any family members who cared about,
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  welcoming that baby into the world and that grief looks different for everyone
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  and we as friends or family members can provide,
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  practical and emotional support through listening or,
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  like you said meal train kind of these practical things things to allow people
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  to care for themselves and give time to heal, and that there's opportunities
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  for our care providers to also,
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  kind of improve or enhance their skill set in,
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  the day-to-day interactions, but then also kind of the bigger picture training
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  about how to support families as they navigate the loss.
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  Yeah, absolutely. All of that. And I would just add, too, for people experiencing
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  pregnancy loss, there are support groups that are available,
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  but journaling can be a really powerful way to help navigate grief and loss.
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  There's several blogs online about it as well that.
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  Talk about navigating grief and loss. And like you mentioned earlier,
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  there's celebrities that are opening up about it.
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  And I think developing a community of people who know and understand can be
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  really helpful when navigating that loss and just getting through it.
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  And like you said, pregnancy loss is very common.
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  And so knowing that you're not the blind, I think as we were just the grief
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  is there and the grief will probably always be there, but finding people to
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  support you and finding ways to navigate that.
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  We know that's kind of this is essential.
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  Okay, well, thank you for talking about this important and under talked about
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  topic. And hopefully this conversation will inspire friends and family to have
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  conversations of their own.
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