On October 15, the World Day of Gestational Loss was celebrated, or what is the same, to make visible the physical and emotional pain of having a spontaneous abortion. Repeat abortions are a common consultation in assisted reproduction clinics, but we speak little of the grieving process that living them entails for a woman and / or a couple.
When an abortion does occur, you have to look for medical reasons. But you also have to treat and listen to patients to mourn the pregnancy loss. For this reason, we wanted to ask Marisol Ródenas, a psychologist at IVI Murcia, to explain what the keys are to face this type of loss. He tells us everything in this post.
Today I want to tell you about an experience that you have been able to go through and that perhaps it has not always been easy for you to talk, either because you feel guilty, ashamed, misunderstood or because you did not find the support you needed at that time.
I am referring to gestational and / or perinatal loss. Yes, when you lose the baby that was on the way and / or about to be born and the emotional process that accompanies it later, the grief.
Abortion: How to Grieve
Grief is not a mental disorder, it is an emotional and natural process experienced by those who suffer a loss, whatever it may be, and that affects behavior, psychism, physical health and even spirituality itself. And like any other pain, it is a personal and intimate experience.
However, gestational and / or perinatal grief has some peculiarities. And, although this luckily has changed from a few years to now, it is a misunderstood, silenced, unauthorized duel. By this I mean that it is not easy to express the pain for this loss and, furthermore, that it is not always recognized socially. All this is due to the fact that the loved one has not been born, there has not been a burial, sometimes he did not even have a name yet, there are no photos of him or memories that allow his existence to be present. And yet, that baby was someone’s child, it had parents who yearned for it and dreamed of it, it had a place in the lives of others, because one becomes a child or a father / mother from conception.
Hence the importance of allowing the baby to be seen, touched, and said goodbye, whenever possible and so desired, because these moments facilitate subsequent emotional recovery.
Emotional support and abortions: How we do it at IVI
In the Psychology Units of the IVI Clinics you can find a space for listening, empathy and respect, where:
- Express your pain and accept and manage your emotions
- Avoid punishing yourself with thoughts of “If I had …” that will make you feel guilty for something that did not depend on you
- Being able to allow yourself a period of convalescence, in which you do not commit to something that requires time and energy
- Accept the support of your environment who, although they do not always know how to say the most appropriate words, do wish to accompany you and help you to move forward
Because what we want is that you can find in yourself that stronger, different, more tolerant and more courageous person that you have been able to become and that, with all this, you can normalize and legitimize your emotional state and increase your well-being in these moments of vulnerability.
Marisol Ródenas
Psychologist
IVI Murcia and IVI Cartagena.
