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 People Have Misconceptions About Miscarriage, And That Can Hurt 
 
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 Most people think a miscarriage is rare, and many believe that if a woman loses a pregnancy that she brought it upon herself. Neither of those things is true, but the enduring beliefs cause great pain to women and their partners. 
 
 In fact, almost half of people who have experienced a miscarriage or whose partner has had one feel guilty, according to a survey to be published Monday in Obstetrics & Gynecology. More than a quarter of them felt shame. Many felt they'd lost a child. 
 
 "It's irrational, but there is such a deep shame attached to not being able to carry a baby to term.... I don't want another baby, I want THIS baby." 
 
 When NPR asked visitors to its Facebook page to tell us what they wished people knew about miscarriage, the response was overwhelming — 200 emails and counting, many heartbreaking. Their sentiments often echoed what the survey found. 
 
 "I wish people knew how much it's possible to miss a person you have never met, and to mark time by their absence," wrote one woman. "I will always think about how old my baby would be now and what our lives would be like if I hadn't lost the pregnancy." 
 
 The survey came about after Dr. Zev Williams realized that many of his patients had misconceptions about miscarriage. "I'd tell them how common a miscarriage was, and they seemed shocked," says Williams, an OB-GYN who directs the Program for Early and Recurrent Pregnancy Loss at Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center in New York. 
 
 In fact, between 15 percent and 20 percent of clinically recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage, defined as a pregnancy loss earlier than 20 weeks of gestation. (Pregnancy loss after that point is called a stillbirth.) Miscarriage is actually "by far the most common complication of pregnancy," says Williams. He and his colleagues wanted to find out how widespread some of the mistaken beliefs about miscarriage are. 
 
 They asked 1,084 adults about miscarriage and its causes. They also asked the 15 percent of survey respondents who had suffered a miscarriage, or whose partner had, about their experience. The results echoed what he'd seen in his patients: Some 55 percent of all respondents believed that miscarriage occurred in 5 percent or less of all pregnancies. 
 
 "I felt, and feel, literally broken, and betrayed by my body." 
 
 The cultural silence around miscarriage contributes to those misunderstandings, Williams says. "A lot of other conditions that people used to speak of only in hushed tones, like cancer and AIDS, we speak about a lot more," he says. 
 
 Not so for miscarriage. Because early pregnancy loss is so common, women are often advised not to share their pregnancy news with friends and family until the start of the second trimester. At that point the chance of miscarriage has drastically declined. But that secrecy means women who do miscarry in the first trimester may not get the support they need, Williams says. 
 
 "It's bizarre that the topic is so taboo," wrote one reader on Facebook. "I really feel an obligation now, having had a miscarriage, to mention my miscarriage when I'm talking about fertility or the process of conceiving or childbirth." She added a sentiment that many other women expressed: "I felt alone until I realized there is this big, secret miscarriage club — one that nobody wants to be a member of — and when I realized it existed, I felt angry that no one told me they had active membership." 
 
 "Many women in my family had suffered one or more, and I had no idea until I had one myself." 
 
 Chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus cause 60 percent of miscarriages. A handful of other medical conditions are also known to cause miscarriage. Most survey respondents knew that genetic or medical problems were the most common cause of early pregnancy loss. But they also mistakenly believed that other factors could trigger a miscarriage: a stressful event (76 percent); lifting something heavy (64 percent); previous use of contraception like an IUD (28 percent) or birth control pills (22 percent); and even an argument (21 percent). Some 22 percent believed that lifestyle choices, like using drugs, tobacco or alcohol, were the single biggest cause of miscarriages. That's not true. 
 
 Those who shared their experiences with NPR said many of those myths were repeated back to them by friends, family or colleagues after their own miscarriages. One said someone blamed her high heels. That kind of talk can be incredibly painful, even if you know you have the facts on your side. 
 
 "I felt alone until I realized there is this big, secret miscarriage club — one that nobody wants to be a member of — and when I realized it existed, I felt angry that no one told me they had active membership." 
 
 "I wish people understood that miscarriages are the flip side of the coin," wrote one woman. "If you've had a healthy pregnancy that went full term — you won a lottery. Short of obvious substance abuse and bull riding — your healthy baby is not the result of anything you did or didn't do. As much as you want to think you are in control — you aren't. And the same goes when I lost each pregnancy — as much as I wish I could have been — it was not in my control." 
 
 The feelings of guilt, shame and enormous loss reported in the survey were a common theme among those who told their stories to NPR. "I felt, and feel, literally broken, and betrayed by my body," wrote one woman. "It's irrational, but there is such a deep shame attached to not being able to carry a baby to term.... I don't want another baby, I want THIS baby, the one I thought I would have, the one I started planning for, hoping for, dreaming about, talking to. All that got taken away from me." 
 
 Not everyone was so deeply affected; some said the miscarriage came as a relief, either because the pregnancy was unwanted, or because they'd known something wasn't quite right. Or they said it was painful at the time, but that they'd moved on and weren't particularly haunted by the loss. "You have every right to feel ALL of your emotions you have," wrote one person. "Whether you feel grief or relief, your emotions are never wrong." 
 
 But because the loss can be so great, people said they wished others would acknowledge a miscarriage without reverting to a laundry list of well-intentioned but hurtful lines: "Well, at least you know you can get pregnant." (One reader said this was particularly upsetting after her seventh miscarriage.) "You can always try again." "If you adopt, you'll get pregnant." "It happens for a reason." "It's God's plan." (That, wrote another reader, sounds an awful lot like "God doesn't want you to be a parent.") 
 
 My husband "had hopes and dreams and fears and so much joy tied up into 9.5 weeks of cells." 
 
 Far better, people said, is to simply say, "I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do for you?" 
 
 Over and over again, we heard a wish that there was more private and public discussion of miscarriage. "Many women in my family had suffered one or more, and I had no idea until I had one myself," wrote one woman. "I felt that no one I knew had gone through this." 
 
 Several readers said this code of silence was even stronger for the partners of women who miscarry. One reader wrote that her husband "had hopes and dreams and fears and so much joy tied up into 9.5 weeks of cells," but he didn't get time off work, flowers or well-wishes from colleagues or visits from friends to "listen to him cry," as she did. Instead, "He had to suffer alone." 
 
 The new survey found that 46 percent of respondents who'd miscarried said they felt less alone when friends talked about their own miscarriages. Even a celebrity's disclosure of miscarriage helped. 
 
 "I wish people knew how much it's possible to miss a person you have never met, and to mark time by their absence." 
 
 One person who recently suffered a miscarriage summed it up: "While I'm definitely still healing emotionally, I would be happy to talk more about it. So many people grieve silently, but I've found that talking really helps the most." 
 
 That's the kind of conversation that Williams says he and his co-authors would like to spark with their survey. "Miscarriage is ancient. It's always been there." And all too often, he says, "people often blame themselves and don't discuss it." ||||| Miscarriages are common, but the majority of Americans still think they occur rarely, a new survey finds. 
 
 The nationwide online survey found that 55 percent of people in the United States believe that miscarriage happens in 5 percent or less of all pregnancies. But in reality, miscarriages end 15 to 20 percent of reported pregnancies, according to the researchers. 
 
 Miscarriage myths affect more than just people in the United States; they are a universal problem, said the study's senior author, Dr. Zev Williams, the director of the Program for Early and Recurrent Pregnancy Loss at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System in New York City. [Blossoming Body: 8 Odd Changes That Happen During Pregnancy] 
 
 People tend to treat miscarriage as a taboo subject, and many women blame themselves for losing a pregnancy, Williams said. 
 
 "I've taken care of sisters who didn't know that each of them were having recurrent miscarriages," because they didn't tell each other, Williams told Live Science. "But you don't see that with anything else. I ask for family histories, so everyone knows when their family has heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer's. But miscarriages, people don't talk about them." 
 
 Here's a look at five lessons about miscarriages doctors and the public could learn, based on what the researchers found to be common misconceptions about miscarriages in their survey, set to be published on Monday (May 11) in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. 
 
 1. Miscarriages are common 
 
 In reality, about 1 out of 5 pregnancies, or between 750,000 and 1 million pregnancies yearly in the United States, end in miscarriage. 
 
 But according to the survey, 10 percent of participants said they thought that fewer than 2 percent of all pregnancies ended in miscarriage. 
 
 This misconception was 2.5 times more common among men than women, the researchers found. 
 
 One possible reason many people hold such mistaken beliefs is that few people talk about miscarriages, Williams said. 
 
 2. People don't understand its causes 
 
 The majority of miscarriages happen for medical or genetic reasons. For instance, about 60 percent of miscarriages occur because of aneuploidy, which is the presence of an incorrect number of chromosomes. Other causes can be related to the mother's health conditions, such as whether there are structural abnormalities in the uterus, or if she has an endocrine disorder or an autoimmune disorder. 
 
 But 22 percent of the survey participants incorrectly said that lifestyle choices, including drug, alcohol or tobacco use during pregnancy, were the single most common causes of miscarriage, the researchers found. Men were 2.6 times more likely to think this than women, the study found. 
 
 People also falsely attributed miscarriages to other factors. For instance, the majority of participants said that a stressful event (76 percent) or longstanding stress (74 percent) could cause a miscarriage. 
 
 A large number of participants said that a miscarriage could be caused by lifting a heavy object (64 percent of respondents), having a sexually transmitted disease in the past (41 percent), using an intrauterine device in the past (28 percent), using oral contraception in the past (22 percent) or getting into an argument (21 percent), the researchers found. 
 
 None of these factors cause miscarriages, the researchers said. [5 Myths About Fertility Treatments] 
 
 Williams said he treated one patient who said that, while pregnant, she had doubts about whether she'd be a good mother. "She miscarried a couple of days later" and was tormented by the thought that she miscarried because she "didn't want it enough," he said. In reality, there is no way that such thoughts could bring on a miscarriage. 
 
 3. Miscarriages make people feel guilt and shame 
 
 About 15 percent of the survey participants said they had been personally affected by miscarriage, and these participants answered additional questions about their experience, the researchers said. 
 
 Among those affected by a miscarriage, 47 percent said they felt guilty, 41 percent said they felt like they did something wrong, 28 percent reported feeling ashamed, and 38 percent said they felt like they could have prevented it somehow, the researchers found. 
 
 Most of them (57 percent) were not told what might have caused the miscarriage. Some were told, "It just happens," or "We don't know." 
 
 But knowing the possible cause can be helpful, the researchers wrote. A majority of respondents, 88 percent, said they would want to know the cause, even if it wasn't something they could have prevented, the researchers found. 
 
 Among the people who were given a reason for the miscarriage, 19 percent fewer felt as if they were to blame, compared to those who were not given a reason, the researchers found. 
 
 4. People who miscarry need support 
 
 Even among people who haven't miscarried, more than one-third said that a pregnancy loss would be "extremely upsetting, equivalent to the loss of a child," the researchers found. 
 
 Of the people who miscarried, 74 percent said they received emotional support from the people they told, but only 45 percent said the medical community had provided adequate emotional support. 
 
 Celebrities can also help. Of survey participants who miscarried, 28 percent said that public figures who shared their miscarriage stories, including Ann Romney, the wife of former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and actress Gwyneth Paltrow, helped ease their feelings of isolation, the study found. 
 
 However, friends helped even more. When a friend revealed a miscarriage, 46 percent of study participants said they felt less isolation after their own miscarriages. 
 
 "When people start talking about it, it has a very positive effect," Williams said. 
 
 5. More awareness is needed 
 
 Few people advocate for greater public awareness of miscarriage because the topic can be emotionally difficult to discuss, Williams said. 
 
 "Because it's such a taboo subject, you don't see advocacy for it, you don't see these support groups, you don't see people lobbying Congress to get more funding," he said. "And so research in miscarriage is dwarfed by all of these other conditions, even in women's health." 
 
 Even doctors may unknowingly discourage open discussion. 
 
 "When a woman does become pregnant, we tell them keep it quiet," he said. "The subtext to that is you might miscarry, and you don't want people to find out about it." 
 
 Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.
– For all its prevalence, miscarriage remains stubbornly taboo. So says Dr. Zev Williams, an OB-GYN and director of the Program for Early and Recurrent Pregnancy Loss at the Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center in New York. He set out to learn about the misconceptions that fill the silence, and in a survey of 1,084 adults published today in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, he learned that most Americans think miscarriage occurs in just 1 in 20 pregnancies—and men are 2.5 times more likely to think they're as rare as 1 in 50. In reality, 1 out of every 4 or 5 pregnancies actually end in miscarriage. "I've taken care of sisters who didn't know that each of them were having recurrent miscarriages" because they didn't tell each other, Williams tells LiveScience. Another major myth is that women cause miscarriages (e.g., via stress, lifting heavy objects, drinking, even having an argument or negative thoughts), and 22% of respondents believed lifestyle choices like drug use are the biggest cause. (Most miscarriages—60%—are caused by chromosomal abnormalities.) Guilt is a common reaction. "I felt, and feel, literally broken, and betrayed by my body," one woman wrote to NPR. "It's irrational, but there is such a deep shame attached to not being able to carry a baby to term." Among the survey respondents who've miscarried, nearly half said they felt less alone when friends talked about their own miscarriages. People "often blame themselves and don't discuss it," Williams said, but "miscarriage is ancient. It's always been there." (In El Salvador, one miscarriage was considered murder.)