Warning: This article includes descriptions of miscarriage and baby loss.
‘I remember so clearly walking past all the happy pregnant women and their partners, holding their scan pictures in their hands, smiling, and feeling like a complete failure,’ Emma Garner tells Metro.co.uk.
At 38-years-old, Emma Garner, from Manchester, has experienced an unimaginable eight baby losses.
She can recall countless trips to hospital, where she was placed in maternity spaces alongside excited mums-to-be, while dealing with devastating loss.
‘Being exposed to people who it’s all going well for really hurts,’ she says.
In 2018, the Pregnancy Loss Group was commissioned to look into the overall quality of NHS care for those who experience baby loss before 24 weeks.
Thanks to their report published in July 2023, parents in England who lose a baby before 24 weeks, can now get a baby loss certificate that recognises their grief.
However, the report also recognised that it was ‘vital’ that a ‘private space’ was offered to parents when ‘receiving unexpected and difficult news’.
The report read: ‘Many parents with whom we spoke felt their distress had been compounded by the lack of a private space in which to grieve, and/or being surrounded by pregnant individuals and newborns.’
It also added that parents ‘should only be cared for in maternity spaces at the patient’s request or if this is the only available place of care.’
Kate Davies is the research, policy and information director for Tommy’s, the baby loss charity. She agrees that separate spaces are vital.
‘Tommy’s fully supports the call for all hospitals and early pregnancy assessment units to provide an ‘appropriate setting and sensitive care’ for those experiencing baby loss in the UK,’ she says.
‘People dealing with the shock and grief of miscarriage should not have to wait side by side in any healthcare setting with others whose pregnancy journey remains positive.’
Sadly, Emma found herself in this situation time and time again.
Her first loss came in 2014, when at 10 weeks, there was no sign of her baby’s heartbeat. A few months after this experience, Emma got pregnant again. But her 12-week scan sadly revealed that her second baby had also died.
‘Again, I was taken back to the waiting room. I didn’t cry, I didn’t speak. I remember looking around feeling angry, bitter, and jealous,’ she says.
‘I remember a couple being there having a conversation about the gender of their baby and that they hoped it was a girl as they didn’t want a boy. I remember thinking that they were lucky it was alive.’
In 2015, one year after her first miscarriage, Emma went on to have two more. At the end of the year, she got pregnant for the fifth time and, after an anxiety-ridden pregnancy, her son, Henry, was born.
She and her partner quickly started trying for another baby, and their second son, Thomas, was then born, but sadly, he had multiple health issues. He died in April 2018, aged just six months.
After Thomas’s death, Emma and her partner decided that they wanted to try for another sibling for Henry.
She became pregnant again later in 2018, but sadly miscarried at 10 weeks, and went on to have three more early miscarriages in 2018. The couple ended that year pregnant, and they welcomed their third son, George, in 2019, and their fourth, Oliver, in 2021.
Emma says continuing to go back to the same waiting room had a huge emotional toll.
‘Seeing the couples happy while I knew I had a dead baby inside me made me very bitter, and I wanted people to know what I was feeling, but obviously I never said or showed anything,’ she explains.
‘In future pregnancies that were successful, I was always exceptionally careful to never give anything away in a waiting room. I’d never look at my pictures in public, I’d never discuss it if my husband either.’
Emma believes having separate waiting rooms for women who have lost their baby is ‘essential’: ‘You’ve just lost a life of dreams and expectations,’ she says.
Kate Davies, from Tommy’s, also notes that A&E is also not an appropriate place to send a grieving mother.
‘We know that many women are signposted to A&E, which is an inappropriate environment and can add to the trauma and distress in what can be an already extremely upsetting situation,’ she says.
But this is what happened to Cheryl Crossley, after she miscarried at 10-and-a-half weeks pregnant.
‘It can be intensely triggering’
Psychotherapist Naomi Magnus, works at North London Therapy. She explains that expecting grieving mothers to wait among pregnant women and newborns could be ‘hugely detrimental’.
‘It can be intensely triggering,’ she tells Metro.co.uk.
‘To be forced to sit in a waiting area while you are waiting for checks directly connected to the loss could hugely intensify the feelings of grief, pain, anxiety and stress.
‘Women are being made to sit face to face with the reality they feel has been taken away from them and that can be very painful.’
While there’s no one-size-fits-all reaction to baby loss, Naomi explains that there can be intense feelings of ‘grief, hopelessness, overwhelm, anger and loss of meaning’.
‘For many, the loss of a baby or a pregnancy also comes along with high levels of uncertainty, if it was a desperately wanted pregnancy then the depths of disappointment can make engaging in “trying again” feel paralysingly anxious, due to the inevitable uncertainty another pregnancy would bring,’ she explains.
‘The uncertainty will be corroborated by the blurriness that often comes with baby loss, many miscarriages are inconclusive in terms of cure and this can make the helpless and uncertain feelings louder and more stress inducing.’
Cheryl, 35, from Leeds, first grew concerned for her baby when she began bleeding heavily while on holiday in France.
When she returned home, she booked into a private clinic for a scan. ‘The clinic was set up for couples wanting videos and 4D photos and it was very baby centric. There were couples in there talking about due dates and names,’ she says.
‘My husband and I still remember that there was a radio playing and the Lenny Kravitz song It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over came on. At the time I wanted to punch someone.’
Cheryl, who works in PR, was told she was still pregnant, but there was a chance she’d lost an undeveloped twin – although doctors couldn’t be sure.
Tragically, just a week later, her worst fears were confirmed, when she miscarried in her bathroom, after calling 111.
‘About 15 minutes into the conversation I experienced a very sharp bolt of pain around my lower stomach, and then I felt something pass out of me,’ she explains.
‘I went into the bathroom, and found the baby, pristine in its little sac. I could see its head, body and little arms and legs. I burst into tears and told him the baby was gone, I could see it.
‘111 advised us to go to A&E for a check-up, with the baby with us in a box if possible.’
Cheryl dutifully went to A&E, where she waited for seven hours, with her baby in a Tupperware box on her lap.
‘The wait was surreal, heartbreaking, and still incredibly vivid in my mind. I wanted to cry, I wanted to sleep. I really didn’t want to be there.’
In response the initial report by the Pregnancy Loss Group, the government said that NHS England will commission a review, to give ‘best practice guidance on the design and planning of new healthcare buildings and the adaptation or extension of existing facilities, including access to appropriate facilities for women and families who suffer bereavement at any stage of pregnancy.’
They added that the review will ‘help to determine the level of investment needed for the development of sensitive bereavement facilities in the medium to long term.’
‘It brought all the emotions back’
After being considered taboo for so long, baby loss is being discussed more opening online. Content creator, India Batson, took to TikTok to share her experiences, in a video that now has three million views.
India, based in the USA, was miscarrying for a second time when she was made to sit in a waiting room surrounded by happily pregnant women. Now, she’s calling for change.
India said: ‘I would like to make a recommendation to OBGYN offices to have a different waiting area if you are there for a miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, a heterotopic pregnancy.
‘Sitting in that waiting room next to tons of pregnant women while you wait to go back just to get blood work to see if your HCG [a hormone produced by the placenta during pregnancy] is back to zero… sucks. There’s no other way to phrase it.’
The waiting room India was sat in, was also the same one where she’d initially been told her baby no longer had a heartbeat.
‘It brought all the emotions back,’ she said. ‘Pregnancy loss is hard.’
The 13,000 comments were filled with women who felt the same way.
‘Sitting there when a couple walks out smiling with ultrasound pictures was like a punch in the gut,’ wroter TikToker Lydia (@lnieuwlandt).
Zeta (@zeta.newest.99) agreed, adding: ‘I sat there losing my child while surrounded by expecting mommas experiencing their best moment, while I was living my worst nightmare. Then I was put on a maternity ward to have surgery.’
Other women also suggested having a separate exit route, rather than having to walk through the reception again after bad news.
‘I had a missed miscarriage. I had to walk through the waiting room sobbing after learning of our loss! I just put my head down and tried not to make eye contact,’ wrote Victoria (@victoriaromeo726).
For more information or for support when dealing with baby loss, visit Tommys.
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