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A dream assignment outside India turned out to be a nightmare for 32-year-old photographer Sameeha Kapoor (name changed on request) when, at 10 weeks of pregnancy, she had a miscarriage. As if going through the trauma away from home wasn’t enough, her friends back home offered no support to her. They didn’t even want to talk about it.
Kapoor isn’t the only one who has dealt with the ‘miscarriage taboo’. It’s the reason why most women don’t even reveal that they have gone through a miscarriage, let alone seek professional help to deal with the loss.
Though a few celebrities like actor Kajol, producer Gauri Khan, Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle and former first lady of the US Michelle Obama have opened up about their miscarriages, the conversation around it is still pretty thin.
The Womb Story, a Mumbai-based organisation started by Prity Dal, a certified postpartum doula, is trying to change this. It is an online community wherein women connect through Facebook and WhatsApp groups and try to help each other deal with the grief of miscarriage and stillbirth.
Dal started this support group after losing her baby daughter. “When I was dealing with my grief, I did not find support in anyone, so I decided that I needed to help people going through a situation similar to mine,” says Dal. “While women are still okay talking about postpartum depression, not many talk about miscarriage. A young woman who lost her pregnancy at three months told me that even her husband was not able to relate to her and could not understand why she was so disheartened. Her family kept telling her that she was still young and would have another child soon,” says Dal. As she is not a therapist, Dal hears them out and refers them to therapists or experts if needed. Dr Rinku Sengupta, obstetrician and gynecologist at Rainbow Children’s Hospital in Delhi, agrees that women don’t reach out for help. “Only one in ten patients reach out for some kind of help. We, on our own, try to assess whether they need psychiatric help or therapy after their loss. ”
Even for those who do, the problem is that there is a shortage of qualified therapists who can deal with this kind of grief. “When we want to send a patient to a therapist, we struggle to find the appropriate help. There is a general dearth of people who specialise in this subject, and that’s true for a lot of other specialisations as well,” she adds.
According to a study published in The Lancet in 2021, an estimated 23 million miscarriages occur every year worldwide, translating to 44 pregnancy losses each minute. While there is no specific data available for India, experts and gynaecologists estimate 15-20% of pregnancies end in miscarriages. The risk, they say, is higher in women in the age group of 30-35, as compared to those in the 25-30 age bracket.
Working professionals say that there is a lack of adequate support and sensitivity at the workplace as well. The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 entitles women to a leave up to six weeks in case of a miscarriage. This also covers any illness that might arise because of the miscarriage, but few avail of it. Co-founder and director of staffing firm TeamLease, Rituparna Chakraborty points out that no law-abiding organisation would deny a legally mandated leave to an employee. “But many women do not even apply for miscarriage leave to avoid conversation around it at the workplace,” says Chakraborty.
Dr Sengupta says as a protocol, patients are informed that they are entitled to leave. “But whether it is because of the taboo of revealing what happened to them or organisational policies, they generally avoid long leave,” she adds.
Even those who want to, like Vandana Gupta, who works with a media startup based in Delhi, hit a wall. “After I lost my pregnancy early this year, my doctor had told me that I am entitled to six weeks leave but when I checked with my organisation about this, they asked me to come back to work as soon as I felt better. ‘The sooner you come to work, the better it is for you,’ my HR told me,” says Gupta.
Vijaya N, who works with a software company in Hyderabad, says she had two miscarriages in a year and instead of being supportive, her company started putting additional pressure on her. “I didn’t even ask for six week leave because my organisation was not understanding about my situation. On top of that, they started to put me under scrutiny because I missed work for a long period. Nobody understood the mental and physical trauma I had gone through,” she says.
Kapoor isn’t the only one who has dealt with the ‘miscarriage taboo’. It’s the reason why most women don’t even reveal that they have gone through a miscarriage, let alone seek professional help to deal with the loss.
Though a few celebrities like actor Kajol, producer Gauri Khan, Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle and former first lady of the US Michelle Obama have opened up about their miscarriages, the conversation around it is still pretty thin.
The Womb Story, a Mumbai-based organisation started by Prity Dal, a certified postpartum doula, is trying to change this. It is an online community wherein women connect through Facebook and WhatsApp groups and try to help each other deal with the grief of miscarriage and stillbirth.
Dal started this support group after losing her baby daughter. “When I was dealing with my grief, I did not find support in anyone, so I decided that I needed to help people going through a situation similar to mine,” says Dal. “While women are still okay talking about postpartum depression, not many talk about miscarriage. A young woman who lost her pregnancy at three months told me that even her husband was not able to relate to her and could not understand why she was so disheartened. Her family kept telling her that she was still young and would have another child soon,” says Dal. As she is not a therapist, Dal hears them out and refers them to therapists or experts if needed. Dr Rinku Sengupta, obstetrician and gynecologist at Rainbow Children’s Hospital in Delhi, agrees that women don’t reach out for help. “Only one in ten patients reach out for some kind of help. We, on our own, try to assess whether they need psychiatric help or therapy after their loss. ”
Even for those who do, the problem is that there is a shortage of qualified therapists who can deal with this kind of grief. “When we want to send a patient to a therapist, we struggle to find the appropriate help. There is a general dearth of people who specialise in this subject, and that’s true for a lot of other specialisations as well,” she adds.
According to a study published in The Lancet in 2021, an estimated 23 million miscarriages occur every year worldwide, translating to 44 pregnancy losses each minute. While there is no specific data available for India, experts and gynaecologists estimate 15-20% of pregnancies end in miscarriages. The risk, they say, is higher in women in the age group of 30-35, as compared to those in the 25-30 age bracket.
Working professionals say that there is a lack of adequate support and sensitivity at the workplace as well. The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 entitles women to a leave up to six weeks in case of a miscarriage. This also covers any illness that might arise because of the miscarriage, but few avail of it. Co-founder and director of staffing firm TeamLease, Rituparna Chakraborty points out that no law-abiding organisation would deny a legally mandated leave to an employee. “But many women do not even apply for miscarriage leave to avoid conversation around it at the workplace,” says Chakraborty.
Dr Sengupta says as a protocol, patients are informed that they are entitled to leave. “But whether it is because of the taboo of revealing what happened to them or organisational policies, they generally avoid long leave,” she adds.
Even those who want to, like Vandana Gupta, who works with a media startup based in Delhi, hit a wall. “After I lost my pregnancy early this year, my doctor had told me that I am entitled to six weeks leave but when I checked with my organisation about this, they asked me to come back to work as soon as I felt better. ‘The sooner you come to work, the better it is for you,’ my HR told me,” says Gupta.
Vijaya N, who works with a software company in Hyderabad, says she had two miscarriages in a year and instead of being supportive, her company started putting additional pressure on her. “I didn’t even ask for six week leave because my organisation was not understanding about my situation. On top of that, they started to put me under scrutiny because I missed work for a long period. Nobody understood the mental and physical trauma I had gone through,” she says.
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