Recurring Pregnancy Loss: What to Know from a Mental Health lens

Recurrent pregnancy loss is a devastating experience that 1-2% of people will go through. So many of my patients have had to go through this. Many keep trying, and sometimes things finally do go according to plan.

If that happens, you might expect yourself to be over the moon, excited even.

But what if you aren’t? What if you’re feeling the exact opposite? This post is going to help with those emotions.

Why don’t I feel hopeful about being pregnant after recurring pregnancy loss?

Sometimes, people try to protect themselves from the scary unknown future and potential loss again by being avoidant.

Avoidance is just a natural thing we all fall into when we're really fearful. It’s a form of the classic term “Fight or Flight”.

Do any of these sound like you?

• I'm disconnected from this pregnancy.

• I do not want to attach to this pregnancy. I don’t want to announce this pregnancy.

• I do not want to have a baby shower.

• I don’t want to buy new clothes. I don’t want to buy baby clothes.

I could go on with the different tactics that people use.

What does not being attached to a pregnancy after recurring loss mean?

Not attaching yourself to this pregnancy can be because you are struggling with this life event actually becoming a reality, after suffering a pregnancy loss it can be so scary.

So avoidance is what you are likely to participate in.

Will I get attached to my pregnancy eventually?

Sometimes I see a little shift in mental health that happens kind of organically, with recurrent pregnancy loss, when the person who's pregnant has passed a pregnancy milestone that they've never passed before in their pregnancy history, such as the first trimester or 23-week mark.

I can't guarantee this will happen when you hit a milestone, but I see it a lot.

Myths about pregnancy after recurring loss

First of all, let’s make something very clear. It’s okay to not feel connected to your pregnancy.

It's really important for you to know that if you're not attaching to your pregnancy, that is not going to impact necessarily how you parent. There is no evidence that not connecting to your pregnancy leads to bad parenting.

And people who have great pregnancies, who are not fearful, also sometimes struggle with attachment after birth.

The second myth that you might be working on is, the thought that if there is a pregnancy loss, it won’t hurt as much as previous losses.

Well, if I just avoid and detach when I do and if I do have a loss, it's not gonna hurt as much.

Has that thought ever crossed your mind?

That's not true. No matter what you do to try to protect yourself right now, a loss is still going to impact you and impact you greatly.

Unfortunately, the avoidance tactic and detaching yourself from your pregnancy really doesn’t have the results we would be hoping for.

Tips to help you cope with your feeling of detachment from pregnancy after recurring loss

Here are a few things I want you to take away from this article.

It might not look and feel different, but every pregnancy is truly different.

It's so important for you to start slowly building up your mindfulness skills to bring you into the present.

Every time you've had a traumatic loss, you are pulled into the past constantly, and that's what's going keeps you in this state of fear and avoidance.

So if we can get you to take a simple walk over to the present, find what grabs your attention.

Try to be connected to the present.

If being connected to your pregnancy is just too much, that's okay.

We can start small, but let's start and be consistent. That is gonna be one of the best ways you can fight this.

Reach out to a therapist who's familiar with recurrent pregnancy loss.

There are plenty of us out here. We're here to help. You can be into short or longterm therapy for something like this, and don't be shy about reaching out and getting yourself more support.

Find your community.

A lot of people in your community are going to think “you're pregnant, no problem! You got this.”

They're not going understand that your pregnancy is triggering trauma symptoms and anxiety symptoms.

So find those communities who understand recurrent pregnancy loss so they can be there for you.

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