The first Sunday of each May is National Miscarriage Awareness Day. This is a day of remembrance for all who have been impacted by miscarriage and a day to spread awareness of the experience that impacts over 100,000 Australians each year.
Miscarriages are common experiences during pregnancy. In Australia, a miscarriage is the loss of a pregnancy before 20 weeks gestation. A miscarriage can be a very emotionally and physically exhausting experience.
In Australia, statistics on miscarriage are not collected so it’s difficult to know exactly how common it is. Sometimes a miscarriage happens when a woman isn’t aware she is pregnant or believes it to be a late period. We know that miscarriages occur in at least 15% of confirmed pregnancies. The actual miscarriage rate is likely to be much higher – we estimate it to be around 1 in 4 pregnancies.
Based on these rates and the number of births each year, we estimate around 285 miscarriages occur every day in Australia.
Up to 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage
Around 285 miscarriages occur every day
In Australia, over 100,000 couples are affected by miscarriage every year
Miscarriage and Grief
Strong emotions, especially grief, can linger long afterward. There’s no “right” or “wrong” way to feel after a traumatic experience like miscarriage. For many, the pain of loss gets better with time. Many people are familiar with the different stages of grief. These stages of grief may not appear as a linear process, and people may move through this cycle multiple times.
I remember like it was just the worst time, it was terrible. Like we were just, I was grief stricken. Like I really, really struggled with that, like a lot. And I remember, yeah just crying every single day, and [partner] just didn’t know what to do with me.
