The Perceptions of Pregnancy blog, like the Researchers’ Network, aims to reach beyond boundaries and borders, and to facilitate an international and interdisciplinary conversation on pregnancy and its associated bodily and emotional experiences from the earliest times to the present day. This week, to coincide with Baby-loss awareness week, Karolina Kuberska writes about the importance of language in discussions about pregnancy loss. 

There are many difficult aspects to the experience of pregnancy loss; even the most articulate people may struggle to capture the emotional chaos or to accurately describe what it is that they have lost. While distinctions are made by professionals working in medicine and English law between miscarriage (up to 23 weeks and 6 days), stillbirth (from the 24th week), and terminations, these categories may not readily translate into how some people perceive what has happened to them: that their baby has died or that they have lost future hopes and dreams.

Continue reading →