I'm so sorry peanuthead, iloveblue and littlewish - and I don't compare my loss to yours, Rachel's and Lily's. I didn't have a bump, didn't feel 'safe' yet, but still I think I can imagine a small proportion of what you must be going through. And this is really bringing it all back for me. Happily I have a 19mo daughter now, but I still remember sobbing to my mum about my mc, while breastfeeing 3mo dd - it never completely leaves you, but yes, it does fade, thankfully. (Incidentally, littlewish, not everyone forgets, I'm sure, they probably just don't know what to say - I had Rachel's due week marked in my diary, and it breaks my heart to see it there).
I have written this to the DM, but not sent it yet. Would be interested to know what you think... (sorry for long post!)
Dear Sir
Thank you for publishing Rachel Morarjee?s eloquent open letter to Lily Allen (3 November). She spoke from the heart about an issue that is rarely discussed and little understood. The common belief that a pregnancy is ?safe? after 12 weeks discounts the thousands of women (and men) affected by late miscarriages and still births each year, some of which might be avoidable if it were possible to implement a system of screening for women who were trying to conceive or in the early stages of pregnancy.
As anyone who has experienced it is aware, antenatal care is already something of a lottery in this country ? in some areas pregnant women see a midwife at around 10 weeks, in others not until after the 12-week scan. Even if comprehensive pre-conception screening were not an option, an extra test to check at an early stage, for example, for antiphospholipid syndrome, requiring low-dose aspirin as a treatment in pregnancy, would save hundreds of babies' lives every year. As it is, a woman usually has to wait until she has endured three losses before tests are routinely offered. Of course early miscarriage is incredibly common, and usually just a matter of bad luck ? nature?s way of dealing with a chromosomal abnormality in the embryo, a baby that never could have survived ? but this is no consolation to the women who go on to suffer multiple losses (at any stage) that could have been avoided had they been aware that there was a problem that might have been dealt with ? not an abnormality in the foetus itself, but something for which they themselves could have received treatment.
To pre-empt any argument over the expense of screening programs, I can only imagine that the cost of a few hundred thousand blood tests would be at least partially compensated for by the saving on the cost of scanning, treating and counselling those women who avoidably miscarry or give birth to still-born children every year.
I hope that if nothing else Lily Allen?s terribly public losses, and Rachel?s response, can serve some small purpose in beginning a long-overdue discussion.
Yours faithfully
Etc,