The fact that a woman suffers an abortion is relatively frequent. Many of those who read the blog have suffered some at some time in your life and, if it has not been so, surely you know a friend or acquaintance who has lived it.
This high frequency of natural abortions it makes many people come to banal it (without bad intention), a fact that, added to the lack of emotional harmony that many people suffer, makes many times say things that more than help aggravate the situation.
When a woman becomes pregnant, it is she who connects with her body, with her hopes, with her joys and fears, and it is she who gives awareness and life in her mind to the baby that is born inside her. The others can only see the changes of their body and their emotional changes, without being able to connect with that baby that we cannot see or feel. Perhaps it is that lack of connection that makes us "screw up" when we hear the news of an abortion and that is why we are going to comment today what you should never say to a woman who has suffered an abortion.
"If he hasn't moved on, it's because he didn't have to be born."
One of the most typical phrases that a woman who has suffered an abortion is usually told is that which expresses a reality that she herself knows better than anyone: "If she has not moved on, it is because she did not have to be born."
Of course Something was wrong and therefore the pregnancy did not continue. The first to know is the woman who suffers the abortion, who at no time decides to try to continue with the pregnancy despite the fact that the thing is going wrong (and that even if she decided little could do). With this phrase it seems that we want to convince women that abortion is the best in such a situation and, as I say, it is not a correct approach to the situation because It is something that happens without a decision in between.
The woman already knows that if it has happened it is because something was not going well, but she has lost her future baby, with whom she had connected through the aforementioned hopes, illusions and fears. When one of them (one of those fears) occurs, it should be the woman who works the part of the positive emotions that she had deposited in that baby since we, when sentencing with a “did not have to be born”, want to quickly eliminate any Negative trace of the event, and unintentionally we are trying to eliminate all the positive things that the woman had created.
“Quiet, you're young, you'll have more”
We live in a very poor society emotionally speaking. So poor, that we don't know (or want to) manage losses. Couples that separate and quickly look for a substitute. Children whose pet dies see as the next day they have another almost the same, as if nothing had happened. Continuing with them, they are often hidden “so that they do not see the dead grandfather” (according to age it could be correct, but according to age it might not be) and many are explained that “they have moved to another place” because They don't want them to know the truth.
Definitely, We try to hide and mask negative emotions, and not only ours, but also those of others. That is why when a woman explains that she has had an abortion she receives from many people a reassuring phrase (nothing) that says: “Quiet, you are young, you will have more”, wanting to quickly erase the memory of what has gone to place in your place hope for what is to come.
However, again we are offering an obviousness that, far from helping, damages. The woman who suffers an abortion is the first who knows she can try to be a mother again. She is the first to know what her concerns are, what her age, what her chances and what hope she puts into it. But not only that, but it is she who has lost a future child and she is the one who knows that, when she becomes pregnant again, if everything goes well, a precious baby will be born whom he will love with madness, but that is not the one who stayed on the road, but another.
"Better now that you are a few weeks than after several months"
When trying to give a positive message to someone when there is a problem, there are always those who remember those who had a worse time, because of the "evil of many, consolation of fools" or "could always be worse" and goes and tells the woman who has just had an abortion that “better now that you are a few weeks than after several months. Imagine if you lost it for seven or eight months, how bad. ” And then they explain the case of that daughter of the neighbor of the fifth who lost her baby with seven months of gestation, or worse, that of the one who came out the other day on TV whose baby died a few hours after birth.
Well, again, the woman is the first who knows that she can always be worse, but she is also the first who knows that she can always be better. Giving messages like these, all we achieve is make the woman feel that her abortion is less important than those cases that we explain and, nevertheless, for her, she is the most important of all, because it was her future baby and it is her loss, her own, that she has to manage and with which she has to live.
And then, what to say to a woman who has just suffered an abortion?
If we have just said that the three most typical phrases a pregnant woman receives help rather little and that on top of that they make the woman feel worse, many will wonder what to say then.
The answer is very simple: any. If you don't know what to say, don't say anything. We are not obliged to do so and sometimes there is nothing we can say to that woman that makes her feel better. Despite this we always try to solve the problems of others trying to reassure, calm, relieve or block the grief of the other person ("Come on, that's it, it's over, now look forward, ...").
There is nothing better than a person who knows how to listen and who offers his shoulder and a sympathetic look in bad times. There is nothing better than a person who offers himself in case you need something, from the heart and who does not try to help you jump the grief phase for the baby that will not be born or try to minimize your problem because it could have been worse or as If it were a defective product to forget to start working on the next one.
Only a woman who has had an abortion knows what her loss is and only she knows what time to stop looking back to start looking forward. Until that time comes, the ideal is a "I'm sorry", a hug and a little time. It is not a miraculous recipe, but it is the best recipe under the circumstances.
Photos | Helga Weber, Greg Hayter on Flickr
In Babies and more | Depression from the loss of a pregnancy can last several years, Natural abortions: how long to wait for a new pregnancy, A pregnancy after an abortion
