Today (29 November) is the first day people who've experienced a miscarriage, within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, can register for a Baby Loss Certificate.
While it's not a legal document, it is an official recognition of the life that's been lost.
Amy Griffiths has been speaking to some of the people who'll be applying for one, as well as the midwife behind the scheme on the Island:
Hi there, I'm Amy Griffiths and I'm one of the journalists in Manx Radio's Newsroom and you're listening to Newscast. Hi, my name's Emma, my partner and I had been trying for a baby for about a year and we fell pregnant sort of late in 2020, I think it was, and probably about a week after we found out we were pregnant, I had some bleeding and some spotting and was basically told to wait until the following day for a scam. So 11 o'clock the following day we went up to the early pregnancy unit and had a scam and was told that the baby was probably about three or four weeks, which in my mind I knew couldn't have been right, I knew I was around seven weeks, but that everything looked okay, they wouldn't expect to see a heartbeat at that kind of gestation, so that we should go home, take a bit of rest and see how things went from there really, so that's easier said than done. By Thursday morning I'd had some heavier bleeding to the point where I'd kind of worked out myself what was happening. Thursday afternoon phoned to go into the early pregnancy unit on the Friday, same room back into the same room where we had the first scan and it became clear very quickly in that room that things hadn't gone the way that we'd hoped, they'd turn the monitor around the other way as they do, so you can't see what's happening, which to me just tells you everything you need to know without actually saying. So the doctor came into the room shortly afterwards, confirmed that I'd had a miscarriage and that it was a complete miscarriage, but that's almost how it was left, so the doctor and the nurse walked out of the room and just sort of said you know take your time, stay in here as long as you need to and then go when you're ready, when partner and I looked at each other and thought go where, exactly what you know what do we do, what we're supposed to do. The doctor had said to us before we went to do another pregnancy test in three weeks time and to hope of all the words to use, to hope that it was negative and I think that's probably one of the most painful things throughout all that I heard, you know you spend so long hoping that that test is going to be positive to then flip that on its head and hope that it's negative is a really you know hard sentence to digest. So we took a you know a few minutes walked out of the room and walked to reception and just sort of said to me is there anything else you need from us, what do we do now? She was like no you're free to go. I was like okay with no no follow-up, no leaflets offered, no aftercare, no check on your mental health and yeah that was it. We walked in pregnant essentially in your head, you're hoping you are still and walked out you know knowing that we'd had that miscarriage and that the baby and all the dreams that we had for that moment in time that that was it, it was gone and then everything just carries on as normal only in real life that's not what happens. Because what impact did the loss have on you and your partner? You have in your head don't you of what your life's going to look like when that baby arrives and you know yes okay it's only a few weeks old but you're already starting school, you know you picture in what's going to happen you know five, ten, fifteen years down the line and for me it was an instant feeling of needing to be pregnant again not with another one but you know to sort of wind back time. My other half he struggled I would say probably a lot more than I did which is something that you know isn't accepted or you know focused on the impact that has on you know the other pair and the emotional part of it is really hard to explain, I've experienced grief before you know obviously I've lost people but that feeling of emptiness was really quite something else and it's forgotten quite quickly for everybody around you whereas for me it was a daily struggle. What impact did your miscarriage then have on your successful pregnancy because you now have a beautiful daughter and did the miscarriage impact that in any way? Yeah it's it has I somehow managed to tell myself that if I didn't get too attached to her didn't bond with her if anything was to go wrong you know it would be okay which is just hormones do funny things to you don't it's a little bit of lunacy because you know very clearly that's not going to be the case and it never was but it made my second pregnancy I wouldn't say it was enjoyable I worried naturally as you know many women do probably every woman for the first sort of 12 or 14 weeks I expected that to stop once I got past you know what they quite clearly call like the danger zone but that that didn't happen for me that went on right the way until or till I went into labor so yeah it wasn't the most enjoyable it does impact and I think that would put me off having a second so I think my daughter would be an only child purely for that reason I don't think I could go through that again just because you're pregnant again doesn't take away you know the pain of losing the first one so let's move on then to the introduction of the baby loss certificates so how did you react when you heard that news there was a few tears shall we say I might get emotional now actually when I left the early pregnancy unit that was probably the hardest thing that I've ever had to come to terms with and to walk out of there feeling like our baby didn't exist which is how it felt and how it's felt ever since that there's no acknowledgement that that baby was there you know you've got a scan of a very tiny little bait bean and that's basically all you have of of that and unfortunately those are attached to a really painful distressing period of your life so to actually have something there to say that you know my baby did exist it'll be it for a really short period of time yeah makes me quite emotional Jess Sherry it wasn't a planned pregnancy so I have got two children my little girl was just two and six at the time my little boy was one and a half and then obviously I just had a feeling I think I was about four days till I was due on and I just had a feeling obviously been pregnant before you kind of know the science I was like okay okay I'll take a test immediately positive I was like oh okay three and then after the initial shock you get excited then I was like no we can do this third one family complete yeah I was just really looking forward to it then we were just so excited and then I found out yeah just shy of four weeks and then I hit five weeks I'd start getting some pains but I kind of brushed it off because obviously with early pregnancy everything's moving shifting especially if you've been through pregnancy before your body kind of just snaps back it's like I've done it before I know what to do I just put it down to that I think that was the Sunday the Monday the pain started getting worse so I rang the doctors and they were like oh I don't know it could be fine just see how you get on and then I had one doctor phoned me back and she was really honestly quite amazing to be honest she was like no I think you need to go to any just to rule out ectopic or what's going on just to be on the safe side but it kind of subsided a little bit so I just kind of brushed it off and I didn't go to any and then I also had another doctor phoned me who was quite harsh actually he was like well if it's a miscarriage we can't really do anything about it I was like oh that's nice okay thank you by the Thursday I start getting really ill really really not well at all but again brushed it off thought you know what pregnancy it is what it is comes with all sorts of pains and illness and sickness and everything but by the Friday the pain was so bad I couldn't even I remember driving to drop my little girl to school I know I was literally hunched over and I was like I actually think I do need to actually go and see someone but I was like I'll just see how I am throughout the course of the day and see if it subsides or what I didn't want to make a big deal if it was nothing so I went to my friend's house and that's when she looked at me she was like no you need to you need to go I had to ring an ambulance I'd got that bad as soon as I got to triage they took my stats and rushed me straight through and the doctor came in scanned me and then she was like yeah we need to go to the proper scan room to get a sonographer to scan you and I was on my own as well my partner at the time couldn't leave work so when they got me to the scan room they were doing the scan and obviously we haven't been praying before you know what to kind of look for so I was looking and I was like oh I don't know really what I'm seeing here so that kind of rang alarm bells and then the sonographer was like you know why we've had to scan you I was like oh yeah to relax topic and she was like yeah I'm really sorry to say what it is and then I just broke down so yeah and I remember obviously being on my own and just sobbing and the doctor and the sonographer just holding me and then they wheeled me straight down to the women's ward 4 so within getting to A&E and surgery it was like three hours and I had to have an emergency surgery to take my whole right tube out yeah it was just it was so quick so shocking my partner at the time only got to the hospital just as they were wheeling me to surgery so I often to deal with that on my own as well was quite traumatic the aftercare I remember before they wheeled me to surgery I think it was one of the healthcare assistants she was like it's fine don't cry I'm like I want to cry I think I'm entitled to cry so I think especially over here as well I feel like that a lot more needs to be done in the kind of support and the aftercare was quite shocking as well I think the only reason that I received mental support was because I was already in with the mental health team over here but had I not been I don't think I would have received any and in terms of wanting to see kind of improving attitudes there definitely seems to be this attitude of well it's only a miscarriage and is that something that you very much definitely especially with the second doctor the phone like well yeah if it's a miscarriage it is it is what it is and often we can really do about it I'm like well that's really not helpful it's not good to be told that obviously medically yeah maybe there isn't anything you can do but you can be supportive you can be nice better or choose your words wisely is kind of just brushed off and it's not as easy as they make it seem did it have a lasting impact on you then your experience going forward after that massively um since then I've been petrified to even consider having another one because of the aftercare obviously with me already having an ectopic I've got a higher risk of having another one and if I was to have another one that would be my older tube gone so it is very scary especially with the lack of support obviously if my older tube was to go then that would be me completely infertile unless I was to go down an IVF route or which is not something anyone really wants to do unless they have to yeah I think the support especially mentally for women then needs to be more when you heard the mags care was going to be offering these baby law certificates how did you feel about that it gave me like a really positive feeling just to acknowledge that what I went through I did go through that there was a life that could have been had I think it's amazing when I did have the ectopic my friend actually made her own certificate of life so to have an official one recognizing that is it's amazing it just gives you that sense of acknowledgement that that did happen and it's real my name is Diane Ruprey and I'm the lead midwife for bereavement care here at the Jane it was really prompted by myself following on from the English government producing a certificate for for mums in England and I felt that on the island man we didn't actually have this this facility so babies that are born before 24 weeks are not legally viable so they're not actually recognized by official official government departments so they don't actually have to be registered as a birth so my thoughts around it were that actually if England and Scotland are actually doing officially recognizing babies that are born before 24 weeks then then I think it's right and correct that that ladies on the Isle of Man or families on the Isle of Man get the same the same status really so my first port of court call I felt was to go to the birth registry to find out if this would be a feasible thing to do so that the certificates themselves are official but they're not legal documents because obviously babies before 24 weeks aren't recognized so we needed to I needed to discuss with the registrar about how I would go about producing the certificates to make them an official document and what is it about it being an official document you think that's so important for people who are in the situation I think any baby that's being born and hasn't survived basically needs to be needs to be recognized as a pregnancy that a mum has had because for some parents as soon as they they are confirmed as pregnant they are parents and to lose a baby any stage in a pregnancy is devastating but to then find that if your baby's born before 24 weeks it's not officially we can't officially register it it must be devastating for them and I think to have some reassuring way of actually having an official document that says my baby existed it it was born then that must be a comfort to them and do you think it's something that's becoming more generally accepted that actually as you say a miscarriage no matter at what stage of the pregnancy is a loss and it is something that people have to grieve yes definitely um the statistics are about one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage and it's not spoken about people do not have a conversation about having lost a baby it's just a massive difficult conversation that people don't want to go down and often lots and lots of your friends or colleagues might have had a miscarriage but it's just not brought out it's not spoken about and I think recently in the last few years with a baby loss week things things are changing and I think that's a really important message to get across that um it is starting to become more in the conversation about baby loss so who can apply for these baby loss certificates and how do they do it so anybody can actually apply for a baby loss certificate if they've lost a baby before 24 weeks it can be historic or it can be current all they have to do is the Ironman um government will have a link to the page which they just click on they fill in the form that is that is there and then that will generate a request which will go to um our admin officers who will then produce a certificate and it will be signed by the head of midwifery and posted out to them. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manx Radio Newscast you are obviously someone with exquisite taste may I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manx Radio podcasts at your favorite podcast provider so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone thank you You
