This Wednesday, women’s rights day, a bill on the psychological support of couples who have suffered a miscarriage must be examined in the National Assembly. The member for Loire-Atlantique (MoDem) Sandrine Josso, vice-president of the delegation for women’s rights which is behind it, explains the main lines to 20 minutes.
What does this text, adopted unanimously by the Social Affairs Committee last month, contain?
This bill should allow the referral to a psychologist by midwives of people who have experienced a miscarriage, and who manifest the need. Ten months ago, the MonParcoursPsy system was set up, which allows general practitioners to do this, for anyone who needs it. There, you live a miscarriage, it is difficult for you, you will be able directly [à partir de 2024] ask the midwife to benefit from these eight sessions reimbursed by social security. You should know that one in ten women experiences a miscarriage in her life, and that there are more and more of them due to the increasing childbearing age. It was therefore time to seriously accompany those who wish it on a psychological level.
Your bill aims to accompany “the double loss represented by the real loss of the embryo or fetus and the symbolic loss of the realization of the desire for a child”…
In France, if a woman has a medical termination of pregnancy, that is to say after three months, there are devices. But a miscarriage at a few weeks of pregnancy, there is nothing… However, whether it is after a few days or two months, you can sometimes already see yourself with a baby in your arms, so the psychological impact is the same. This means that while some manage to overcome this ordeal year after year, others have a lot more trouble and are faced, as well as the couple, with a lot of distress, immediately afterwards, or much later. It has been proven that a woman who needed support but did not have it was at risk of developing anxiety, depression, and even of attempting suicide.
Before the accompaniment by a psychologist, shouldn’t we better sensitize the practitioners who take care of these women medically?
The regional health agencies (ARS) are going to organize a whole “miscarriage” course with the aim of better training the professionals likely to help or support women and couples: radiologists, sonographers, midwives, doctors, etc. Today, there are disparities, with some practitioners who are not even trained in the announcement of a miscarriage, it is no longer possible! We must give them tools and means to stop trivializing it. The objective is to develop around couples confronted with this event a society of empathy rather than judgement. Today, we still hear inappropriate phrases, such as “you will make others”, or “the baby was not viable”. But when people suffer, it’s unheard of.