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.