Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to draw attention to the fact that International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day is observed across the USA and parts of Canada where the memory of lost babies can be honoured. Official observance helps women overcome their grief, whilst at the same time raising awareness of the shocking extent of this tragedy. Michelle Smith—not her real name, for obvious reasons—from my electorate of Gilmore, is the survivor of four miscarriages. She asks you today for your support and says:

I’m proud to be an Australian. Ours is a progressive, forward thinking nation so I ask you to officially declare 15th October as International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day across Australia. Official recognition raises social awareness, encouraging more research. And more research raises the possibility that more babies’ lives might be saved. The prevalence of pregnancy and infant loss is shocking, due to lack of awareness and social taboo. Theirs is a silent grief because they tend to avoid telling people about it. But more often than not, whenever they break their personal silence, they find that the person they’re speaking with has either lost a baby too, or knows someone who has.

So how prevalent is it? One out of every four Australian women has lost a baby. One out of every three pregnancies ends in loss. Each year across the developed world alone an estimated 500,000 miscarriages take place, one in every 148 babies is stillborn and three out of every 1,000 babies dies shortly after birth. That is an awful lot of grief.

In the vast majority of cases, the cause of loss is unknown and it could not have been prevented. Yet, most tragically of all, the deaths of many healthy babies could have been avoided through harmless prenatal testing. For example, vasa praevia is an obstetric complication that causes massive haemorrhaging. Catastrophically, this causes foetal death 95 per cent of the time. Yet vasa praevia can be detected via ultrasound as early as at 16 weeks gestation. And, when it has been detected, the infant survival rate is 100 per cent. To be frank, what if it was your child or grandchild who died due to undetected vasa praevia? Would not greater awareness of this condition lead to routine testing? Compare this with the commonplace amniocentesis used to detect birth defects at the 16-week mark. Could not an ultrasound test for vasa praevia be scheduled for the same doctor’s visit?

Official recognition of International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day could raise awareness of conditions like vasa praevia and its detection via ultrasound. Again, it just might be your future child’s or grandchild’s life that is saved. I am utterly convinced that this grief is prolonged because of a social taboo that stems from lack of awareness. Most choose to suffer silently for the following reasons: (1) they do not want to make other people feel uncomfortable; (2) they do not want to trigger their grief; and (3) they fear others might think they harmed their babies. As a result, they tend to keep their grief to themselves.

They also suffer seemingly relentless triggers, which come in the unassuming form of visibly pregnant women and babies and families who pass by them countless times a day. In fact, they are acutely aware of their presence when they are in the throes of their grief. As the saying goes: when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

Imagine for a moment what it would be like to experience what many leading psychologists consider to be the worst grief of all—that is, keeping it to yourself and having it triggered over and over, day after day, and yet you are expected to function as usual in home and work life because society tells you that you should. Is it tough? You bet it is, and it lasts a surprisingly long time. Michelle says that she honestly remembers thinking that she was never, ever going to get over her grief.

For a quick comparison, consider mental health, disability and child abuse—also formerly taboo subjects. They have all been brought to the fore, which has attracted research, development and impressive outcomes. These innocents are no longer shunned or institutionalised for life. Consider the impact of recognising 3 December as International Day for People with Disability. The time has come for pregnancy and infant loss to come out of the closet as well. Please declare 15 October as International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day in Australia. English psychologist GH Lewes said:

The only cure for grief is action.

On behalf of the hundreds of thousands of Australians who have suffered pregnancy and infant loss, I ask for your support in taking action today.