How to survive a miscarriage in early or late pregnancy: advice from a psychologist

Two stripes on the test give the woman an indescribable feeling. She begins to listen to herself, feels the growth of a new life in herself, imagines the unborn child: his elastic pink cheeks, soft hair, smile. He begins to look after the dowry and study the catalogs of prams.

But hope is not always destined to come true. Sometimes a pregnancy is terminated in an unexpected way. A miscarriage at any gestational age (early or late pregnancy) is a huge stress for a woman. But you cannot indulge in despair. You need to take care of your own health, get rid of depression and learn how to feel the joy of life again.

Miscarriage, spontaneous abortion - spontaneous pathological abortion. Spontaneous abortion ends in 15-20% of clinically established cases of pregnancy. These figures are the lower bound, as in many cases a miscarriage occurs in the early stages - before a woman realizes that she is pregnant, and the clinical signs of a miscarriage are mistaken for heavy periods or for their delay.

Miscarriages are different: an ectopic pregnancy, a frozen pregnancy, an egg in which there was no embryo, stillbirth (when a baby is born between 16 and 20 weeks and cannot yet be saved by doctors). In each case, the reasons are different, but basically it is a low level of progesterone in a woman, a virus, growth and developmental arrest in a child, malformations in a child, hormonal or biochemical imbalance in the mother (including as a result of the use of hormonal contraceptives in the past), a history of abortions or miscarriages resulting in curettage of the uterus.

One way or another, no one is safe from a miscarriage ...

Possible causes of miscarriage

What does a woman feel after losing

Each of the failed mothers experiences grief in its own way. The first reaction is shock. It may be accompanied by hysteria or, conversely, withdrawal into oneself and refusal to communicate.

After losing a child, a woman experiences a whole “cocktail” of feelings. She can blame herself, her husband, doctors, or other people for what happened to her.It may seem that she will never experience the joy of motherhood. The woman has a burning pity for the little man, whom she could not give life to.

Almost all women after a miscarriage become depressed.

Severe psychological condition exacerbates hormonal failure. A woman experiences frequent mood swings: violent sobs give way to hysterical laughter. I want to stay alone, and immediately there is a need to tell someone about my experiences.

A woman may not perceive reality well, not respond to others, refuse food and food, and experience problems with sleep. Some inhibition may also be present. Many, recalling subsequently a difficult period, cannot say that they felt what was happening, who was next to them.

It is good if at that moment someone near and dear to you is near you, who can support, hug, find words of consolation or simply, be silent in silence.

Share your grief

It is important not to keep your pain in yourself, but to share it with loved ones. If you voice the feelings that you experience, it will be easier for you to experience them. However, try to choose from your environment such people who, indeed, can sympathize, understand, support.

Some people are simply not able to understand what a woman is going through. Their advice hurts rather than brings relief. You can often hear phrases:

• "Nothing wrong. Give birth again ”;
• “Maybe he was sick, so he did not survive”;
• “You already have children, why do you need more”;
• “All for the best, you still do not have your own home, good job, car, etc.”;

It is better to stay away from such advisers. However, you definitely need to reprimand. You can talk with your mom or close friend, tell your sister or husband about your feelings and feelings. And it’s easier for some to open up to a random interlocutor. If you are a believer, you can talk with the priest. You can also refer to someone who himself has experienced this in the past. This person, for sure, will understand and support you.

If there is no person in your environment whom you could and would like to trust, at least say your feelings out loud. This will help to pour out negative energy.

Feel free to cry. You have experienced real grief, and you have nothing to be ashamed of. You can cry for your unborn baby, for your unfulfilled hopes, for everything that you expected with such tenderness and impatience. Forget that tears are a sign of weakness. In your case, they are healing. Together with them will come tension and pulling pain, which you cannot get rid of.

Guilt

After a miscarriage, guilt may torment you. You will frantically search for the answer: "For what? Why did this happen to me? ". You can recall how you were inattentive to yourself and your health, maybe remember that you reacted to the news of your pregnancy with fright or even frustration.

Get rid of these thoughts. There is no fault of yours. Unfortunately, life is designed so that anything can happen to each of us. No one is safe from misfortune or tragedy. No need to look for the guilty and torment yourself. An event has occurred. You will not change anything. Live on.

Time is the best doctor

When a person experiences a bereavement, it is difficult for him to believe that over time the pain will recede. But it is so. Coming soon questions: “What am I doing this for?” and "Why did this happen to me?" give way to others. You will begin to think about how you can cope with depression and return to your real life. You will notice that not only you, but also your loved ones suffer from your condition: other children, husband, parents.

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But you should not rely only on time. You will have to work independently to get out of a depressed state. Attempts to simply forget that what happened to you are doomed to failure. It is necessary to survive the situation, accept it and let it go.

There are various psychological tricks to deal with grief. One of them is offered by psychologist Bob Dayte, who specializes in working with people who have lost. The specialist advises writing on separate phrases:

• “I'm doing everything right”;
• “My pain will end”;
• “I will be able to overcome the loss, as other people could do”;
• "I feel myself good";
• “I get joy from life”;

Place the leaflets so that they constantly catch your eye: attach to the mirror or to the refrigerator door, hang over the desktop, put in your wallet. Each time the phrases catch your eye, repeat them mentally or aloud. These settings will start to work.

Take care of your health

Caring for yourself, about your own health will help you distract from thoughts of irreparable loss. An interrupted pregnancy is a serious blow to the body, causing damage to your health.

Miscarriage leads to a violation of the hormonal background, strikes the endocrine system, often there is a lot of blood loss.

You need to visit medical specialists, get tested, clearly follow all the recommendations of doctors. Try to walk more, move, eat properly, get enough sleep. Try to completely eliminate cigarettes and alcohol.

1. Think about your state of health before a miscarriage. Be sure to visit the necessary specialists, take tests and follow all the doctor’s appointments.
2. Watch your diet. Food may not be of any interest to you right now, but you need strength. Variety and quality of food is what is needed. Set a regular time for meals and for a bite to eat. Drink plenty of fluids to avoid dehydration. Watch your weight (if you notice significant changes - consult a doctor).
3. In no case do not abuse coffee and alcohol! Better take multivitamins.
4. Stick to your normal daily routine. Go to bed in the evening at the usual time, even if you do not feel like sleeping at all. Avoid large and regular doses of sleeping pills.

If you notice any changes in your condition, be sure to consult a doctor. It can be:

• weight change;
• weakness;
• temperature increase;
• violations of the digestive tract;
• copious discharge and other unusual manifestations that indicate a malfunction of the body.

Remember that a full recovery after a miscarriage will be the key to the next successful pregnancy.

It is also important to try to find out what caused the miscarriage. As a rule, the loss of a child occurs as a result of hormonal disruptions, disruptions in the endocrine system, as well as various diseases. Finding out the exact cause will allow you to take measures to prevent the recurrence of the tragedy.

If you yourself are not yet in a position to ask the doctor the right questions, ask someone from your loved ones to go for an appointment. Try to find answers to all the questions that bother you. Do not be afraid to ask your doctor about everything that bothers you. Before receiving, be sure to write down on a piece of paper (or in your smartphone) all the questions you are interested in so as not to forget anything. The doctor’s answers are also best recorded immediately. As known, "a dull pencil is better than a sharp memory ”. If you don’t understand something during the conversation with the doctor, do not hesitate to ask again or clarify, since this is the most important thing. It is your right to know what happened to you to prevent a recurrence of misfortune.

Watch yourself

Monitoring your condition also contributes to an early psychological recovery. Keep a diary in which you write:

• what happened to you during the day;
• who you met
• what they thought and felt;
• what changes you felt in yourself.

Do not forget to note everything that gave you pleasure or joy. Even if it will be some little things: a beautiful sunset, a funny game of kittens on the front lawn, a delicious cup of coffee in a cafe.

Also write down your plans and goals in the diary. In this section you must:

• plan affairs and tasks for the day, week, month;
• to note what you managed to do and write down what or who prevented you from realizing your goals;
• whose help will be needed to successfully solve the tasks;
• what is your condition that prevented you from realizing your plans;
• what needs to be done to find the resources to live on.

Be sure to record your successes and achievements. Set only real goals, unattainable tasks will only upset you.

Learning to relax

Skills of relaxation and self-regulation will help you in any life situation. And in the period when you are experiencing a miscarriage, the methods will allow you to recover faster and find peace of mind.

You can practice yoga, Chinese qigong gymnastics, do meditation. To get started, start the following set of exercises:

1. Lie on your back, try to take the most comfortable position, if necessary, put a pillow or roller under the lower back.
2. Exhale and close your eyes.
3. Inhale slowly, counting to four, fill the stomach first with air, then the chest.
4. Exhale also slowly, counting to four, the air should seem to flow out from the abdomen, then out of the chest and exit through the nose.

You can sit in the lotus position, relax, try to get rid of all thoughts, sit and just watch your breathing, making even inhalations and exhalations. If you have extraneous thoughts, imagine that you open a tunnel that sucks in all the extraneous.

When the help of a psychologist is needed

Unfortunately, it is not always possible to cope with depression after a miscarriage in the home. The help of professional psychologists or psychotherapists will be required if:

• thoughts of suicide;
• prolonged apathy;
• abuse of alcohol or sedatives;
• signs of mental disorders (hallucinations, obsessive thoughts and ideas, etc.);
• protracted depression;
• sleep disturbances, recurring nightmares;
• chronic fatigue.

As a rule, physiological recovery after a miscarriage takes three to six months. During this time, the hormonal background normalizes, the endocrine system returns to normal. The same period of time is necessary in order to normalize your mental state.

If this does not happen, you still feel guilty, you do not want to communicate with others, you do not have the strength to do your usual business, you need to seek professional medical or psychological help.

A psychologist or psychotherapist will help you understand yourself, get rid of negative attitudes and thoughts. A specialist will really appreciate your condition and, if necessary, advise you to consult an endocrinologist or other medical specialists.

Pamper yourself

Attentiveness to yourself will allow you to recover faster. Give yourself little joys daily. Buy those products that you like, go to the spa, go to the park. Well, if you have the opportunity to go on vacation. A change of scenery affects the psychological state in the most favorable way.

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Think about your appearance: change your wardrobe, visit a hairdresser, sign up with a good beautician.

All this will allow you to be distracted, get positive emotions, feel the joy of life and successfully survive your loss.

Do not forget, but survive

The purpose of this article is not to make you forget what you have suffered, but to help you survive a tragic event. You have lost a child. This is your experience that will always be with you. But this should not prevent you from living on. You have become different, stronger and wiser. You will have a different attitude to life, you will be able to better understand others and yourself.

Many women who survived a miscarriage blame either themselves (they didn’t eat well, worked hard, were treated irregularly), or other people (inattentive doctors, an always busy husband, selfish mother-in-law, boss, etc.). Though not immediately, but this view of the situation must be abandoned.It is not easy, and may even seem completely impossible. But this step must be taken, and it is the result of a lot of meaningful work on yourself.

Video: Miscarriage Recovery

And the last moment

When a woman experiences a miscarriage, the last thing she can think of is a new pregnancy. But you must know that you will definitely become a mother. You will again experience the excitement when you find out that a new life has arisen in you, trembling tenderness from the sensation of the first, almost imperceptible, movements of the baby, and this time it will end well. You will become a mother, and will rejoice at the smiles of your baby, play with him, watch him grow.

Mommy tips from forums

Spelling and punctuation of the authors saved.

koshkash: Doctors say that if a pregnancy is rejected, it means that from the very beginning it “did not work out.” And the conceived child is not viable. Sometimes parents themselves are not happy that, contrary to nature, by titanic efforts they preserved and retained what was doomed ... sad.gif
It’s not easy to survive, yes. But you are not the first, and many, many then had babies, and not even one. Take care of yourself (first of all, your health, and not only vitamins, maybe, if finances allow, and go where to relax and unwind, you don’t have to sit in your sadness and depression). God forbid, everything will turn out.

markovaolga: my words may seem harsh, but this is exactly so, because I myself went through it. How girls write correctly is a natural selection and you need to relate to it that way. When right after I lost the long-awaited and desired child and they told me so, I started to cry, later I thought a lot about it and yet I came to the conclusion that everything that happens to us is exactly the way it should be.

The most important thing now is not to focus on this. Think that a miscarriage at 10 weeks is a lesser tragedy than death before giving birth or at the time of giving birth, and you were answered by girls who experienced a true tragedy, God forbid anyone else, and still become Moms (this is the most important thing in life) I very much wish you not to cycle, but to go to your goal, relax as much as possible (cinema, theaters, etc.), drink vitamins, talk with your doctor about planning and already get all the recommendations about vitamins and when to start.

Slavkina: For three years I’ve been remembering the second of September for the same reason. Then all hopes were broken. The term was less, but they still did the cleaning. Hard to remember, tears welling up. My husband helped me, I later realized this. Every day he said that everything will be fine and everything will work out. Then it seemed to me that he was mocking me and that good would never happen again. Through acquaintances, I then found a good specialist who understood my problems, prescribed treatment, morally calmed down, and now, after turning off my head, I became pregnant and did not even notice how. It happened six months later.
The main thing for you now is to put your nerves in order, get distracted, occupy your head with other thoughts (I know that this seems impossible). Conception during stress is also no good.

tata tata: I also cried a lot, all the time I thought why this could happen to me because everything was quietly peaceful, everyone was happy. I went to an ultrasound scan and saw my baby and lost it in a couple of days. It was 10 weeks too.

Doctors advised to refrain from planning for half a year or a year. So that the body recovers. And I wanted right away and for some reason it didn’t work out, and I cheated myself even more. Then she talked with a friend, my father, and he, like a magic one, said nothing all the same as everyone else. But I calmed down. Somehow less thoughts, a new job helped. And here it is happiness. We will have a year soon.

Kindness:Finally, I’m ready to write my story! In December of that year, my husband and I learned that we were expecting a second child, we were very happy. There have never been health problems. At 12 weeks on Friday, I found reddish discharge - we went to the hospital, but did not go to bed. Already from Sunday to Monday, at night my stomach started to hurt a lot, blood started, a lot of blood, and we went to the hospital. The condition was terrible.It poured very hard with me. And as soon as the doctor came in and said climb into the chair - everything fell out of me here, along with a tiny fruit! It was horrible! I was immediately taken away for cleaning and is no longer pregnant. It was awful! Roared, sobbed, cried. It was terribly depressed. But despair lasted a couple of days, because you can’t help with tears, plus my husband supported me very much. Of course, the doctor said at least six months to wait, then you can try again. But I trusted my feelings and sensations, because I knew that Health was not the issue. And as soon as the first menstruation ended after a miscarriage, I became pregnant again. Monthly periods went exactly a month later. That is, a miscarriage happened on 01/23, menstruation went on 02/26, in March I became pregnant. Now I’m lying with my newborn second daughter))) everything is fine. I am writing to support all the girls who have the same situation now. Since she climbed and searched for answers at that time, who, when, and how many. No time to cry. There is a desire - there is a goal. If healthy, then do it right away! If there are sores, then treat and do. The main thing is not to think about the bad! Health and children to you !!!

Lena: Do not blame yourself at all! It would be necessary to check in hot pursuit and pass extra. tests - find the strength in it and plan your pregnancy further - only it will save you from depression and worries. Do not sit at home and do not lock up, you need to act - depression is not an assistant, you need to get rid of it by all means! Go to the doctor and try to find the cause. If this is the first B, then sometimes this happens and no one can explain (I have several such examples from friends). I wish you that more of this never happened to you !!! Plan your baby, you wanted it and you can not stop because of failure.

Marina: Girls, each has its own cross! Need to let go and live on! We want to have children, so you need to live with this desire and God will give! And the path of depression and self-flagellation is the path to nowhere! Itself is constantly tormented and directly “pulling my hair” I pull myself out of a state of grief.

Video recommendations of a reproductologist: pregnancy after a miscarriage

The vast majority of women who once had a miscarriage become happy mothers of healthy babies - and this is an absolutely indisputable fact. Be sure to remember that your life goes on, and it is as full as before.

READ ALSO:

• How to deal with a woman who has lost a child: common mistakes. Psychologist's opinion
• The experience of a mother who survived a miscarriage

Tips from personal experience: how I survived a miscarriage