Stages of grief: Emotions after miscarriage
Miscarriage can cause complex feelings and affect the mental health of the people who experience it. Because miscarriage can be hard to understand unless you’ve experienced it, it can be difficult for those closest to you to provide support. Grief, anxiety, and depression after a miscarriage are real and valid, even if you never got to meet your baby.
Most people experience the five stages of grief after a miscarriage:
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
Going through these stages is normal after any distressing event. But grief after a miscarriage can be more complex. Because parents don’t get to hold the baby or have a funeral, it can be difficult to get closure. That’s why the process of grieving can take up to a year (sometimes longer) after a miscarriage. But grieving doesn’t necessarily erase the memory of the pregnancy, and that’s absolutely normal.