About one in four women who become pregnant will miscarry, and one in 160 will experience a stillbirth. Of those women, a growing number are dealing with the devastating pain and grief in new ways, particularly in their use of social media. Sharing their personal stories, it seems, helps these couples deal with their grief and begin the process of healing.
Sharing on social media helps families break through the isolation of miscarriage and stillbirth, according to Denise Cote-Arsenault, a registered nurse and professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro School of Nursing. For more than 30 years, Cote-Arsenault has worked with families who have lost babies.
She's seen more families have pictures taken and displayed not only on social media but also in their homes. She says they also actively speak about their deceased children as part of the family, things that simply did not happen a few decades ago.
"I think it's a very healthy, therapeutic thing for them to do," Cote-Arsenault says. "It used to be if you lost your baby you were told not talk about it."
Currently, there are more than 100 active Facebook groups and Instagram pages devoted to grieving parents. There are also accounts dedicated to awareness, specifically on Instagram - a recent search shows the hashtag #prenancylossawareness has been used nearly 19,000 times on the platform, and #pregnancyloss has been used more than 100,000 times.
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