Recovering from miscarriage requires a mental and physical approach. It’s easy to want to focus on the physical aspect of recovering like balancing hormones, lab testing, etc. and while all of that is important we can get into a pattern of constantly fixing. I did a podcast episode on how to recover from miscarriage with Meg Langston and one thing that Meg said in this episode that really stuck with me is that life is more than a healing process. The importance of having fun and looking beyond ourselves is crucial when it comes to recovering from a miscarriage.
Meg said it best when one of the first things she mentioned about recovering from miscarriage (both physically and mentally) was letting yourself grieve. Mental and emotional stress turn into physical stress even if we don’t always feel it right away. Honoring yourself and your baby by grieving with whatever that looks like for you can help you move through that inevitable stress. Having community behind you to help you do this can also be very healing. Science even tells us how important community it for our health. You have probably experienced the health-promoting effects of your closest relationships already. Every time your partner makes you laugh, or your best friend patiently listens to you unload about your rough day, or your mom gives you a giant hug—your healing speeds up just a tad. Even connecting with our pets can help boost our health by increasing how much oxytocin the body releases. This creates a feeling of happiness.
What Does Science Say About Being in a Community?
Studies show that having a social network or a group of people to which you feel connected significantly strengthens your immune system, lowers stress, boosts mood, decreases mortality, and supports overall wellbeing in humans. There’s even more substantial evidence of this for women in particular. This was a fascinating snippet from the article on how women react differently to stress:
“Researchers now suspect that women have a more extensive behavioral repertoire than just fight or flight. Dr. Klein says it seems that when the hormone oxytocin is released, as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the fight or flight response and encourages her to tend to children and gather with other women instead. Studies suggest that more oxytocin is released when she engages in this tending or befriending, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect. This calming response does not occur in men, says Dr. Klein, because testosterone—which men have in high levels when they’re under stress—seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen, she adds, seems to enhance it.”
When you’re trying to improve your health and achieve a goal like pregnancy, it can be hard to focus on anything else. I think this is an important reminder that your mental and physical health can benefits from connecting with those around you and supporting others as well.
I want to close out this section with a quote I love from Zoe Clark-Coates:
What about the physical aspect of supporting your body after a miscarriage? There are a number of things you can do to support yourself after going through a miscarriage. Your doctor will likely also have recommendations based on how far along you were, your health history, etc. so make sure you discuss anything you consider implementing with them.
There can be a number of different reasons for miscarriage to occur, but a very common reason is an excessive amount of stress (both mental and physical). This is why making sure you are eating enough and working on nutrient deficiencies is an important place to start. If appetite isn’t in a good place, then that is a sign from your body that it may be stressed, not getting enough food, or have an imbalance in hormones. Slowly starting to eat more will help over time. I really like hair mineral testing for getting a look at nutrient status and also stress/how depleted you are.
Another important area to assess is progesterone status and hormone balance in general. Getting a look at if progesterone levels are adequate will be an important piece of the puzzle when trying to understand when it’s a good time to conceive again in the future. Progesterone helps us maintain pregnancy. When levels drop too low, we can unfortunately miscarry. Excessive stress can lower progesterone along with nutrient deficiencies, hypothyroidism, and irregular cycles. We have to be ovulating regularly in order to make progesterone. I have a podcast on how to increase progesterone naturally here.
Excess estrogen can also lead to fertility struggles since it can increase cortisol (stress hormone) levels in the body and reduce the amount of available thyroid hormone. I’ve done quite a bit of content on thyroid health and miscarriage, so I’m not going to go into a ton here, but even subclinical thyroid levels can increase the risk of miscarriage. If you want to learn how to assess your thyroid health, watch my free thyroid training here. Thyroid health can impact how much progesterone we make, so you would want to make sure that’s in a good place too.
Lastly, blood clotting disorders can also increase the risk of miscarriage. There are a number of different possible causes of blood clots, you can learn more from this comprehensive blog post. One thing that can be helpful is taking low dose aspirin. It has been shown to reduce blood clots, protect against preeclampsia, improve insulin sensitivity, support liver function, improve calcium absorption, and can be anti-fungal. This is not to say that aspirin is a good fit for everyone. You want to make sure you talk with your provider before incorporating it. Meg recommends a low dose aspirin. She likes the Gericare brand since it is uncoated.
I want to preface this section with a gentle reminder that our health doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect before TTC again, we just want to make sure our bodies are supported so that we not only carry out a pregnancy but both mom and baby are healthy and can have a good postpartum experience. It can be easy to say you don’t care, you will deal with whatever, and I hear that, but things like low progesterone, which can contribute to miscarriage, can also lead to complications during pregnancy and things like postpartum depression. You can utilize progesterone therapy during pregnancy (talk with your doctor), but supporting your body will help ensure you use it well and set you up for success postpartum.
Signs Your Body Is Ready To TTC
If this blog post was helpful I encourage you to listen to the podcast episode I did with Meg, you can find that here.
I also offer the Nurture Your Fertility program where we help women learn about the issues that may have contributed to miscarriage and help them prepare their bodies for another pregnancy. You can learn more about the program here.
