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Description
This project addresses the problem of violation of rights of women who miscarry. Each year, in Poland, around 40 000 women miscarry. Unfortunately, miscarriage is a degrading, traumatic, and lonely experience. Women are not treated as people in medical procedures, and are not given privacy or told the details of the miscarriage process. The institutional support provided usually amounts to a single meeting with a psychologist, often held at an inappropriate time and place. The subject of miscarriage is very much a social taboo, and women do not have a space where they can share their emotions. At the same time, 30% of women who miscarry get depression, and 40% have anxiety disorders, caused equally by reliving of trauma in hospital wards and doctors’ surgeries.Under the project, a multimedia platform will be created for women who miscarry and those close to them, with information packs, interviews with experts, and instructional videos. The Project Promoter will also provide one-on-one consultations for approximately 100 people, with an option of attending two support groups. Specialists – including midwives, doctors, psychologists, birth coaches, etc. (twenty people in total) - will benefit from supervision and attend training, and a video of the training, plus materials, will also be posted on the platform. A podcast will also be made normalising the issue of miscarriage. The Project Promoter will conduct research on the experiences of women who miscarry in Poland, and use it to produce a report giving conclusions and recommendations for changes to current miscarriage-related standards. The results will be presented at an online conference.Primarily, women who have experienced miscarriage and those close to them will benefit from the project – they will be given direct support, but also indirect support, due to prevention of abuses and reliving of trauma in hospital wards and doctors’ surgeries, and in public.
Summary of project results
The project addresses the lack of support for women who have experienced a miscarriage. Approximately 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Every year in Poland, 40,000 women and 40,000 of their partners experience miscarriages (UNICEF, 2020). Unfortunately, the rights of these people and their relatives are violated. The majority of hospitals in Poland do not comply with the standards of perinatal care, their implementation is not checked by the legislator in any way, and the generality of the provision on the need to ensure a dignified miscarriage causes medical facilities to interpret it arbitrarily or to ignore it completely (NIK, 2021). Miscarriage in Poland is often a humiliating, traumatic and lonely experience. The experience is covered by such a strong social taboo that people who miscarry have no space to share their feelings and needs. According to statistics, 30% of women suffer from depression after a miscarriage, 40% develop symptoms of anxiety and up to 38% meet the criteria for PTSD. This is due not only to the experience of pregnancy loss itself, but also to the retraumatisation that occurs in hospital wards and doctors'' offices.
The Project Promoter conducted a study to monitor the experiences and needs of miscarriage survivors in Poland and produced a report based on the findings. The report included specific recommendations for policy makers, health care providers and professionals. A support and education platform was set up, targeting different groups: people during and after miscarriage and their relatives, as well as professionals working with miscarriage patients. People who have experienced a miscarriage received psychological support, both individually and in groups, through support groups. A residential training course was held for midwives and professionals working with people who have experienced miscarriage and their families. A public awareness campaign on miscarriage and the rights of people experiencing miscarriage was carried out. The campaign included the production of 12 episodes of a podcast on miscarriage to normalise the phenomenon.
The outcome of the project was to support miscarriage survivors by preventing abuse and secondary traumatisation in hospital wards, doctors'' surgeries and public spaces. People who had experienced miscarriage and were victims of abuse received concrete help. A second important group that participated in the activities were professionals involved in accompanying and supporting people who have experienced miscarriage: midwives, doctors, psychologists, doulas. Those who work with miscarrying women and their families were made aware of the problem and learned how to prevent abuse. The monitoring and its results helped to raise awareness of the problem and to initiate a debate on the necessary changes in the standards of perinatal care in Poland. The project has undoubtedly helped to break the social taboo surrounding miscarriage.