4 ms·

Miscarriages are pretty common too. Anywhere from 10-25% of "recognized" pregnancies end in miscarriage. Among our close friends and family with kids (N=16),

Miscarriages are pretty common too. Anywhere from 10-25% of "recognized" pregnancies end in miscarriage. Among our close friends and family with kids (N=16), we're the only ones that has 2 or more kids and had no miscarriages. If you have married friends or friends with kids, its probably best not to joke about when they're going to pop one out. Fertility can be long, expensive, and not very fun.

davrosthedalek 7y ago
While jokes are not good, it's important to talk about it. A good friend of mine had to go through multiple miscarriages, and almost lost her life in the process. She hurt a lot from the feeling of being imperfect and somehow at fault. She was actually surprised how common an occurrence a miscarriage is, and if we manage to make it more normal to talk about it, and more normal to expect that it can happen, I think we would make an important step in reducing the pain.
- hhas01 7y ago
  “She was actually surprised how common an occurrence a miscarriage is” Answer: very†. But it often isn’t talked about. And, I strongly agree, not talking about it is very Bad indeed. Ironically, I think developed nations’ success in all but eliminating premature deaths from once-ubiquitous infectious diseases has left recent generations without the highly-practised coping skills, social support systems, and painfully resigned stoicism that helped get our great-great-grandparents through the horrible inevitable process of burying half their kids before the poor little bleeders could even make it to adulthood. We’re all now such strangers to death we’re shit-scared by even the thought of talking about it, never mind directly facing up to it ourselves. -- † Even assuming the hosting part works perfectly, the whole DNA splicing and replication process is always an absolute crapshoot‡. ‡ And, to be fair, if it weren’t for all those accidental copy errors none of us would be here now to argue the issue, for life on Earth would never have advanced beyond the single cell. So yay for an imperfect process, but—bloody hell—is it one harsh SOB.
- sambe 7y ago
  I find quite a lot of people do not agree that it's important to talk about it, for whatever reason. My guess is that overcoming the social stigma around showing your emotions/sharing problems is mostly to blame. Perhaps most people in my social group actually have had such problems and don't even feel comfortable in the meta-conversation. I often say things like "people should talk about this kind of stuff more because it would help them through it". I obviously mean it in a general sense (very much not trying to get specific people to talk about specific problems). Responses vary from an insincere "yeah..." to the rather odd "you can't tell people what to do".
  - davrosthedalek 7y ago
    It's not only the people who are directly affected who have to talk it through. I think we all need to talk about these things, to make it more normal. Talk about it before it happens. We all have a tendency to elevate any misfortune, small and large, to be the biggest thing ever, and how can you ever live through it. (Edit: I'm not wanting to say that a miscarriage is a small misfortune. No, it's not. But there are many many worse things which can go wrong.)
    - sambe 7y ago
      Definitely, but I still find others don't agree (or at least don't enthusiastically agree).
7thaccount 7y ago
We had a rough pregnancy and reading those stats was heartbreaking to me. Everything ended up ok, but we feared for the worst many times and it took us a long time to get pregnant. It is one reason why I don't want to try again as I don't want to go through that again and have it not turn out alright. We found out my mother in law had several before she had several healthy children.
taneq 7y ago
> If you have married friends or friends with[out?] kids, its probably best not to joke about when they're going to pop one out. Cannot stress this enough. If a couple is childfree by choice they'll probably tell you. If they don't talk about whether they want kids or not, you shouldn't raise the topic.
- pyuser583 7y ago
  Eeeeeeh. I’m not a big admirer of “taboo topics.” If you’re close enough with someone to talk about intimate topics, say, sex, baby making plans are ok for discussion. Back off if the person doesn’t want to talk about it. But we are an open society, and part of that is talking about things.
nostrademons 7y ago
It's interesting how this is one of those things where you have a very different perspective on it as an adult than as a child/teen. As a child, 100% of your friends had parents who were fertile, and nearly 100% had parents who wanted kids. As an adult, you realize that there's this vast world out there of people who either don't want or can't have kids, and you may even be part of that world. Survivorship bias is such an amazingly powerful force on our mental models of how the world works.
ip26 7y ago
Personally after going through it, I found myself wondering why the hell it's not more widely discussed how common it is. (Also, how much less common it is after 10 weeks) Without that knowledge, when it happens there's the immediate fear that there's something wrong with you, that you'll never be able to have kids, that it's hopeless. When in reality it happens a lot, including to countless couples who go on to have big happy families. They say if we were able to track 'unrecognized' pregnancies, the total rate of miscarry across all pregnancies is likely much higher than 25%
sambe 7y ago
Depending on which source you use, you can find numbers quite a bit higher than that - especially if you include unknown/unconfirmed early-stage pregnancies. This source seems to hit the lower end of the range: https://expectingscience.com/2015/08/26/lies-damned-lies-and-miscarriage-statistics/ https://expectingscience.com/2015/08/26/lies-damned-lies-and... but is mostly quoting numbers conditional upon having detected a heartbeat. That first check is pretty terrifying. My anecdata matches yours: lots of miscarriages in immediate social groups.

davrosthedalek 7y ago

While jokes are not good, it's important to talk about it. A good friend of mine had to go through multiple miscarriages, and almost lost her life in the process. She hurt a lot from the feeling of being imperfect and somehow at fault. She was actually surprised how common an occurrence a miscarriage is, and if we manage to make it more normal to talk about it, and more normal to expect that it can happen, I think we would make an important step in reducing the pain.

hhas01 7y ago
“She was actually surprised how common an occurrence a miscarriage is” Answer: very†. But it often isn’t talked about. And, I strongly agree, not talking about it is very Bad indeed. Ironically, I think developed nations’ success in all but eliminating premature deaths from once-ubiquitous infectious diseases has left recent generations without the highly-practised coping skills, social support systems, and painfully resigned stoicism that helped get our great-great-grandparents through the horrible inevitable process of burying half their kids before the poor little bleeders could even make it to adulthood. We’re all now such strangers to death we’re shit-scared by even the thought of talking about it, never mind directly facing up to it ourselves. -- † Even assuming the hosting part works perfectly, the whole DNA splicing and replication process is always an absolute crapshoot‡. ‡ And, to be fair, if it weren’t for all those accidental copy errors none of us would be here now to argue the issue, for life on Earth would never have advanced beyond the single cell. So yay for an imperfect process, but—bloody hell—is it one harsh SOB.
sambe 7y ago
I find quite a lot of people do not agree that it's important to talk about it, for whatever reason. My guess is that overcoming the social stigma around showing your emotions/sharing problems is mostly to blame. Perhaps most people in my social group actually have had such problems and don't even feel comfortable in the meta-conversation. I often say things like "people should talk about this kind of stuff more because it would help them through it". I obviously mean it in a general sense (very much not trying to get specific people to talk about specific problems). Responses vary from an insincere "yeah..." to the rather odd "you can't tell people what to do".
- davrosthedalek 7y ago
  It's not only the people who are directly affected who have to talk it through. I think we all need to talk about these things, to make it more normal. Talk about it before it happens. We all have a tendency to elevate any misfortune, small and large, to be the biggest thing ever, and how can you ever live through it. (Edit: I'm not wanting to say that a miscarriage is a small misfortune. No, it's not. But there are many many worse things which can go wrong.)
  - sambe 7y ago
    Definitely, but I still find others don't agree (or at least don't enthusiastically agree).

7thaccount 7y ago

We had a rough pregnancy and reading those stats was heartbreaking to me. Everything ended up ok, but we feared for the worst many times and it took us a long time to get pregnant. It is one reason why I don't want to try again as I don't want to go through that again and have it not turn out alright. We found out my mother in law had several before she had several healthy children.

taneq 7y ago

> If you have married friends or friends with[out?] kids, its probably best not to joke about when they're going to pop one out. Cannot stress this enough. If a couple is childfree by choice they'll probably tell you. If they don't talk about whether they want kids or not, you shouldn't raise the topic.

pyuser583 7y ago
Eeeeeeh. I’m not a big admirer of “taboo topics.” If you’re close enough with someone to talk about intimate topics, say, sex, baby making plans are ok for discussion. Back off if the person doesn’t want to talk about it. But we are an open society, and part of that is talking about things.

nostrademons 7y ago

It's interesting how this is one of those things where you have a very different perspective on it as an adult than as a child/teen. As a child, 100% of your friends had parents who were fertile, and nearly 100% had parents who wanted kids. As an adult, you realize that there's this vast world out there of people who either don't want or can't have kids, and you may even be part of that world. Survivorship bias is such an amazingly powerful force on our mental models of how the world works.

ip26 7y ago

Personally after going through it, I found myself wondering why the hell it's not more widely discussed how common it is. (Also, how much less common it is after 10 weeks) Without that knowledge, when it happens there's the immediate fear that there's something wrong with you, that you'll never be able to have kids, that it's hopeless. When in reality it happens a lot, including to countless couples who go on to have big happy families. They say if we were able to track 'unrecognized' pregnancies, the total rate of miscarry across all pregnancies is likely much higher than 25%

sambe 7y ago

Depending on which source you use, you can find numbers quite a bit higher than that - especially if you include unknown/unconfirmed early-stage pregnancies. This source seems to hit the lower end of the range: https://expectingscience.com/2015/08/26/lies-damned-lies-and-miscarriage-statistics/ https://expectingscience.com/2015/08/26/lies-damned-lies-and... but is mostly quoting numbers conditional upon having detected a heartbeat. That first check is pretty terrifying. My anecdata matches yours: lots of miscarriages in immediate social groups.