Channel 5 documentary looks to remove the taboo of talking about miscarriage

There are around 900,000 pregnancies in the UK each year, but one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage. Tonight Channel 5 air a documentary looking at the difficult subject.

We don’t talk about it, even to our partners and closest friends. As part of baby loss-awareness week, this poignant film is airing on International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.

Nine women and men lift the lid on this common event that wreaks destruction for would-be parents. Each recalls – in raw detail – their very personal stories of the day they lost their babies.

Broadcaster Natasha Kaplinsky remembers going for a scan and the sonographer saying “I’m so sorry, would you like some time to yourself? … It took me ages to understand that he meant the pregnancy wasn’t going to work.”

Journalist Anna Whitehouse remembers being told to “go home and wait for your dead baby to pass and flush it down the toilet.” Actress Lacey Turner recalls sobbing her heart out. She went back towork the next day, “I was walking around feeling so heartbroken, yet nobody would have had a clue.”

Musician Izzy Judd remembers going to the toilet, “the physical sensation of having a miscarriage, of passing a baby, I’ll never forget that.”

Actress Jane Danson was desperate for her 12th week scan. On the day, the doctor turned the screen away from her and said “I don’t think there’s a heartbeat.”

Arts ProducerJessica Hepburn remembers being at the theatre when she suffered a massive loss of blood. She didn’t know what to do, so she tied her coat around herself and went back towatch the second act.

Channel 5 also explore how the grief pulls couples apart… Journalist Matt Farquharson remembers how useless he felt, he “became this gormless bystander, hoping for the best…”

Travel journalist Lisa Francesca Nand recalls her struggles to stay pregnant while her husband, Psychotherapist David Kirk recalls how he “shutdown” everytime Lisa fell pregnant for fear it was going to end in tragedy.

Tonight Channel 5 want to ‘confront this last taboo – and grieve openly for our lost children.’

Miscarriage: Our Story, tonight at 10pm on Channel 5