AIBU to wonder if earlier generations really viewed early miscarriages differently?

[KitKat1985]

Just interested in garnering opinions on this really. I have debated whether to post this at all as I'm aware the subject matter is a sensitive one for a lot of people, so I've tried to really clear in the title that it's a thread about early miscarriages so those who don't want to read the whole post don't have to. But it's a conversation that really got me wondering recently so wanted to hear some views on it. I had a conversation recently with some women who were from a previous generation (think late 50's onwards). They basically said that back when they were having babies you weren't even really considered to be pregnant until you had missed two periods (so I guess would be about 8 weeks). They said they may have had occasions whereby they were late etc, but if they bled before the '2 missed period' mark they said they just put it down as 'one of those things', and were a bit dismissive about people in this generation who would report being really upset because they were having a miscarriage when it was very early on in their pregnancy. They also said that these days because of early sensitivity tests etc, people often consider themselves to be pregnant sometimes before their period is even late, which in their opinion was wrong and just led to a lot more heartbreak if things then didn't progress well. I'm wondering if they're telling the whole truth or not about how previous generations viewed early miscarriages. I can't completely believe that in a previous generation women didn't also feel a bit devastated if they started bleeding after they were late, and therefore must have probably also worked out that they were having an early pregnancy loss. I can to some extent sympathise with their theory though that testing really early can lead to more heartache. Do you think early miscarriages really were viewed differently a generation ago? Or do you think it was just more a taboo subject and if women were very upset about early losses they were just under societal pressure not to say it?

My Mum had multiple miscarriages after me ( I am first born & Mum is RH negative) which I think she was very sad about - she shared a bit of this when I was expecting my first, but did seem to be a bit of "matter of fact" about it too (societal pressures, as maybe her then friends, neighbours experienced similar). For record my Mum was born 1930 & was 27 when I was born. I was 23 in 1982 with my eldest. She mentioned that she had been pregnant often - limited contraception ?? - & I think from memory most of her mc's were baby boys. Dad & Mum had 3 surviving children, all girls. I fortunately have never had an early mc - that I know about, but I did lose a wee boy at 26 weeks. The 2 pregnancies before & after him were both premature births, & had lots of support with - so cannot imagine stoically picking up my aprons (metaphorical only :) ) & getting back into stuff, packing my emotion & loss into a little box in my head. Hugs to all those who have coped with or supported those with early mc.

Interesting Longtime, we are the same age and so are our DMs. I agree.

Do you not think this is partly due to the added pressure on pregnant women to conform and 'be healthy'?

Current advice from the RCOG is for women trying to conceive to not drink, and then NHS guidelines are not to drink in pregnancy. Plus endless food restrictions, and don't you even dare think about having the odd fag.

Women who are pregnant are expected to change their lifestyle in many ways from the second its 'pink', if not before.

This wasn't the expectation just a decade or two ago. Women today can't get away with not considering themselves pregnant until they have missed two periods. You are supposed to be deeply repentant about having done anything, anything at all that may have 'hurt the baby' before you even knew, or you are a bad mother.

It's not just women considering themselves pregnant from the moment sperm meets egg, it is society and current health advice.

My mother and MIL were both born in 1949, MIL had no pregnancy tests and I'm the youngest of 4 and the only one my mum said there was home pregnancy cat tests available for. Both have said it was better before home tests as most early miscarriages went by unnoticed.

Regarding the remark earlier by someone saying early testing is self indulgent. As I mentioned earlier I had an ectopic pregnancy, I was only a few weeks pregnant, Thank goodness I had tested (this was in the 1980's) and was lucky enough to have a GP who realised what it was. i have heard of other people being sent to the wrong dept of the hospital because they were wrongly DX with appendicitis or something similar.

I went straight to the right place because I knew I was pregnant and told them so. Any time wasted and I would have died - as it was it was very touch and go and I was lucky to survive.

I presume people who think early testing is indulgent have never experienced any kind of complication - I mean what an utterly bizarre thing to say

My mother had a miscarriage in 1953 at ten weeks, and it upset her enormously, especially as her mother (my DGM) behaved as though it was something embarrassing and not to be mentioned. She told people that my DM was ill with ‘flu. My DM was surprised when she bumped into an acquaintance who asked her if she was feeling better and said her husband had had the same as her! I think my DM suffered a lot from being unable to talk to anyone about the lost baby. She didn’t become pregnant again for six years, and I am her only child. She sometimes talked to me about it when I reached my teens.

My first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at twelve weeks in 1979. I still remember the big pool of blood that formed on the floor when I went to the doctor , and being whisked straight off for a D and C. I still remember what my due date would have been, but I don’t remember feeling the same kind of devastation that my DM felt. I just accepted that it had happened, that it was Nature, and expected to go on to have other babies, which fortunately I did. I felt a sense of loss of course, but it didn’t overwhelm me. I was living in a country where I didn’t speak much of the language, and there was no internet for information in those days, but my MIL cheerily told me about her own miscarriages and a stillbirth and said it happens frequently, and I think I was reassured by the fact that nobody made a big thing of it. There was certainly no tiptoeing around it.

Watching with interest... I'm trying to write about this topic so this thread is very helpful!

This thread so much sense! I had what I now think was an early miscarriage in 1978, but there were no home pregnancy tests so who knows? I do find the contemporary angst over early miscarriage baffling and self indulgent.

I’m 61 and think I probably had some early miscarriages before and in between babies. They were like late heavy clotty periods, up to 3 weeks late. Like other posters have said we didn’t have access to early tests, scans etc. Today at 3 weeks late we would have done a test and started to get excited.
We also had stiff upper lip mothers from the generation of “some pregnancies don’t take” “ don’t tell anyone until you have seen the doctor” “ it’s not the end of the world, you have plenty of time to have another” etc

Another point regarding all the 'early testing is self indulgent' shit, is that if you do have infertility problems it is probably worth knowing if you are someone who can't conceive or someone who is having recurrent miscarriages. There are quite different tests and treatment options you could be looking at.

If you didn't test early, how would you know for sure?

I am in my mid 30s and have never tested till I have missed two periods. I don't know why really and I certainly think I'm in the minority. Perhaps self preservation? I have just always believed that I don't want to get my hopes up and I personally just prefer to wait. I suppose at the back of my mind I don't want to set myself up for disappointment having seen the grief and heartbreak friends have suffered when things have gone wrong. Totally respect others may feel different and for some medically testing early is vitally important.

I think there is some fascinating views here and the one that stood out was about control. I think my generation want to be able to control things now in a way that was perhaps not so possible in the past but if there's one thing I do know, we can't control fertility and pregnancy in the way we can other aspects of our lives.

I had 5 miscarriages before I had DS. I'm about 7 weeks into my first pregnancy since having him. I've told my family and a select number of close friends partially because I don't take well to pregnancy and it's plainly obvious (I'm white as a sheet, hurling for England, and extremely tired, which is out of the ordinary for me, I usually cope well on little sleep), and partially because I know if this one doesn't end well, I'll be heartbroken, and I want them to understand if I need to go quiet for a bit. I feel it easier to cope with the losses if I acknowledge them. We didn't give any of them names, but we refer to them as the names we had for them/the bump that ever actually became a proper bump. I'm glad I feel able to talk about it with a select few, I would find it worse for those litte lives to have been lost AND to go unacknowledged. I don't speak about them all of the time, but I do when it's appropriate to the conversation.

"the bizarre idea that having lots of other children means you probably are rather relieved."

It's not because your other children are a replacement, simply that if you already have 12, you are relieved that:
a) you won't risk leaving them motherless if you die in childbirth, not to mention being laid up for a while when you have said 12 kids to look after
b) you don't have to stretch the food to go in yet another mouth or clothes be eked out longer and see your existing children go hungrier and with fewer clothes
c) you cannot physically cope with more children - washing, nowhere for them to sleep etc etc.

Have you never read Angela's Ashes?!

My colleague (early 30s) has been off work with stress following a miscarriage since the beginning of December, and is signed off until mid January - she was four weeks pregnant. Another colleague who’s in her early 60s told me she had seven miscarriages before conceiving her much wanted twin boys, but they were treated mainly as late periods and she had at most a day off work each time and just got on with it. It really struck me how different the two approaches were and I wondered if it was a generational thing.

Wazflimflam, good point about infertility etc. That’s why I am glad things have moved on.

My mother had a cavalier jolly jokey attitude towards her m/c.
I'm not supposed to write that, but it's true about her.
I can't comment about other women of her era... but no one ever acted shocked or upset by what my mother said or how she said it (entertaining friends with her m/c story.. and she absolutely meant it as entertainment, a story often told).
That was 1970s onwards.
yes, I think maybe things have changed.

Well, in Roman times, infants weren't considered to be properly human until they were over a year old. So I do think across the centuries people's attitudes have changed and their perceptions of loss also. I wonder if not considering a baby to be fully human, helped on a societal level at least to deal with massive infant mortality, however I'm sure many Roman mother's still grieved for babies that died.

I’ve had en ectopic pregnancy so I’m pretty fucking glad I found out at 4 weeks. The pregnancy test wasn’t an indulgence it saved my life.

On three occasions I have periods that were about three weeks late when I could have been pregnant but hadn't tested (not trying so not on my mind really) they were incredibly heavy, clotted and seemed to have bits of tissue, very different from my usual late periods (I used to be very irregular). I suspected at the time that they were miscarriages but never saw anyone about them or reallen mentioned them to anyone as I couldn't be sure. Because of that I'm not really bothered about them, so I suppose if older generations weren't encouraged to test until much later it's a similar sort of tbing,?

Interesting. I didn't tell anyone until 1w weeks. 18 after a 17 week loss. With hindsight in think it would have been better to be supported.

For those saying people didn't really know until missing two periods. They didn't develop tender, veined breasts, copious discharge inconsistent with ones cycle, metallic tastes, slight queasiness, abject tiredness then. .

I knew I was pg every time within 48 hours of conception.