THE ESSENTIAL
- In 2022, one in four pregnancies ends in a natural termination of pregnancy in the first five months. Each year, 200,000 French women go through this ordeal.
- The petition launched by the collective has already collected nearly 7,000 signatures.
“Having a miscarriage”. This formulation is used to evoke an early termination of pregnancy before the 22nd week of amenorrhea, date of viability of the fetus. Recently, a collective called “Miscarriage, true experience” asked for the abandonment of this expression, in a column published in The worldMarch 27.
A “natural termination of pregnancy” instead of a “miscarriage”
“Let’s put an end to the expression ‘having a miscarriage’ which makes you feel guilty and invisible. Because nothing is wrong, and everything is true. Because we don’t ‘have miscarriages’, but suffer them. And that words weigh on our minds, dictate our thoughts and influence our actions. Let’s talk regarding ‘natural termination of pregnancy’. Because that is what it is all regarding and what we experience in our bodies”, wrote the committed women’s group. The authors of this forum pointed out that for many women, this natural termination of pregnancy was a traumatic event, which had repercussions on both their physical and mental health.
“Much thought has been given to the use of the term miscarriage. Its appeal is to be an expression understood by everyone, but it remains problematic in many respects. Just the expression ‘to have a miscarriage’, it’s as if it were a voluntary act”, explained to Huffington PostSandra Lorenzo, journalist, author of A miscarriage like no other and signatory of the forum.
The measures proposed by the collective for better care
The collective indicated that it wanted to lift taboos around the early termination of pregnancy so that women benefit from better care. For this, the members of the group propose several measures. Among them is the establishment of a national multimedia information campaign. The signatories also demand the implementation of a 100% paid sick leave from work of at least three days for women who have gone through a natural termination of pregnancy and their spouse.
The collective also calls for the establishment of training for midwives and obstetrician-gynecologists. “To undergo a natural termination of pregnancy is still too often to be faced with a health practitioner who tells us that the event is ‘banal’ without recognizing its absolute singularity, that ‘nature is indeed made’, which sends us home without explanation or follow-up, to finish expelling our embryo to the toilet”, can we read in the petition initiated by the group.
These committed women also want an increase in the budget allocated to hospitals for better management of early termination of pregnancy. Another measure: the integration into SVT programs and in sexuality education courses, from college, of teaching on natural pregnancy terminations. “The provision of a booklet on natural termination of pregnancy in all maternities, PMI and offices of general practitioners, midwives and gynecologists” is also claimed by the collective.
