Gestational Loss: What Happens to our Body and Emotions?

When a gestational loss is experienced, especially in couples who are in fertility treatments, it is recommended from the emotional component to live a grieving process that allows to process the pain, sadness and farewell.

There is no single or ideal way to live gestational grief, each person does it according to their experience and feeling. However, allowing yourself to feel is the first step to move forward and accept.

How to cope with gestational grief?

The first thing is to understand that grief is an emotional process that occurs when a loss is generated. In the case of a pregnancy, the loss of an unborn baby, but if longed for and dreamed of.

Although for many people it is difficult to express this pain, it is important to allow yourself to live the process, accept it and transform it.

Not for everyone the feeling or grief will be the same. Each person should live their loss according to their emotions, feelings and personality; the important thing is to understand that it is a difficult moment that must be overcome, and if necessary, emotional support should be sought to face it and continue.

What are the most common feelings in the midst of gestational losses?

• Guilt: looking for those responsible or taking responsibility for oneself is one of the most common actions, however, in the midst of this process it is important to understand that losses occur due to factors beyond someone’s will. Trying to understand the causes is important in the grieving process, but also letting go, living, accepting what happened is fundamental.

• Remorse: feeling that something was done that should not have been done, generates a feeling of guilt that, although it may not correspond to reality, it is important to observe it, welcome it and then transform it by connecting with what is valuable that the experience of having gestated the time we did left us.

• Loneliness: although gestational losses are more common than believed, people who live this process feel alone and afraid to talk about the subject. Support groups should be sought to help live the grief in the best way and with accompaniment.

• Sadness: it is an innate feeling of the human being in the face of a loss or farewell. It is very good to feel it, to then welcome new feelings of well-being. It is important to understand that contradictory feelings can coexist and it is also normal in this process.

How to cope with gestational grief?

There is no single way to cope with gestational grief, each person should live this experience in a unique and individual way. We share some recommendations that will help you cope with this farewell to continue in the best way:

• Look for support networks to understand that you are not the only one.

• Allow yourself to live the process to accept it and transform it.

• If you feel it necessary, perform rituals that allow you to give a place to your experience and that enable the farewell that is so fundamental in grief.

• Value the time you enjoyed the gestation. It was a unique experience that will forever remain in your heart.

• Respect the grief of the other. We do not all live the process in the same way.

• Seek emotional support. It will help you to go through the experience, elaborate the grief, understand the appropriate time to continue in the search for motherhood and fatherhood, if that is the desire.

Can emotions lead to a gestational loss?

There is no evidence to show that the emotional part is a direct factor that leads to a gestational loss, however, some behaviors acquired by psychological or emotional aspects can lead to behaviors that alter fertility. For example, the consumption of nicotine or alcohol due to anxiety, lack of sleep or rest due to feelings of worry or stress, among others.

We must not forget that the body, mind and emotions are an integral whole, what happens on one side can affect or alter the other. The important thing is to take care equally of all these areas of our life.