In France, 200,000 women experience a natural termination of pregnancy each year. Still too taboo, this test is the subject of a forum and a petition. To free speech!
The miscarriage affects one in four pregnancies in the first trimester. 200,000 women go through this ordeal every year in France. One in ten women is at risk of experiencing a natural pregnancy loss during her lifetime. These figures are very important and yet this subject remains taboo.
A group of people, named “Miscarriage, true experience”, wants to free speech and ensure that natural terminations of pregnancy are better supported. They have just published a column in The world and a petition you can sign.
The column published in The world was written and signed by Judith Aquien, author of Three months in silence (Payot, 2021), Fanny de Font-Réaulx, co-founder and director of “Luna Podcast”, Mathilde Lemiesle, author of My Almost Nothings (Rabbits, 2021); Sandra Lorenzo, journalist and author of A miscarriage like any other (First, 2022); Anna N’Diaye, co-founder of “Luna Podcast”; Paloma Stefani, communication officer of “Luna Podcast”.
Eight concrete measures
If you have not experienced a miscarriage yourself, you necessarily know someone who has experienced one and even several.
But in discussions, in the media, the subject is still very taboo. However, the consequences on the people who experience them can be very difficult to grasp. Both physical and psychologicalthese are often lived in silence, in secret.
To help these people, the collective “Fausse layer, true experience” offers eight concrete measures to be put in place, relayed by The world :
« 1. The establishment ofa national multimedia information campaign on natural termination of pregnancy.
2. The establishment ofa 100% paid work stoppage of at least three days for women who have had a natural pregnancy termination and their spouse (like in New Zealand).
3. The budget increase devoted to hospitals to allow better management of natural terminations of pregnancy, first cause of consultation in gynecological emergencies. The increase in staff and the creation of dedicated places in maternity wards (to put an end to auscultations next to birth rooms with babies crying in the background).
4. The establishment of training for midwives and gynecologists-obstetricianswith the participation of expert patients (as has been the case in Canada for thirty years), in order to allow better medical care for women who have just undergone a natural termination of pregnancy.
5. The integration in SVT programs and in sexuality education courses, from middle school, ofteaching on natural termination of pregnancy, their biological causes and their concrete and bodily manifestations.
6. The provision ofa booklet on natural terminations of pregnancy in all maternity wards, maternal and child protection centers (PMI) and general practitioner, midwifery and gynecologist offices, for women, their spouses and relatives. Booklet including explanatory elements, but also the mention of associations, discussion groups, specialized psychologists who can help them.
7. Offer the possibility ofpsychological follow-up reimbursed for women who experience a natural termination of pregnancy and their spouse, to help them get through this event and calmly consider a future pregnancy.
8. The creation of’a toll-free number, listening platform which informs and directs towards support and support systems. »
Reading these measures, one wonders why this is not already the case.
With regard to the three-day work stoppage, this was one of the 17 measures to better take care of and take into account the first three months of pregnancy, as well as miscarriages, presented by MP Paula Forteza before the Assembly in November 2021. All had been rejected. This is why it is important to come back to the charge.
A change of vocabulary and a collective awareness
Terminology is important. The term “false” gives the impression that it is not real, yet the suffering associated with an unwanted termination of pregnancy is.
Moreover, externally, it is not seen, but the people who face this event, live it in their body, physically, it is a real experience. In The worldthe collective explains the weight of the words:
“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 do not “make 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’s what it’s all regarding and what we experience in our bodies. »
For these measures to reach the public authorities, and why not arrive in the debate for the presidential election, it is important to sign the petition. It’s this way !
Breaking taboos around miscarriage is the goal of this powerful comic
Picture in one: © Mathilde Lemiesle
