Follow @dearsundaymotherhood for pregnancy, postpartum, and early motherhood writing, support, and education. — The first and loudest phrase you’ll likely hear if you talk to someone who has experienced pregnancy loss or infertility is this: It’s so isolating. No matter your loss, so much can feel, well, gone: control, how you thought your life would look, hopes and expectations, trust in your body, a pregnancy, a baby. That’s why it makes total sense to approach fertility challenges, as well as pregnancy and perinatal loss, through a grief lens, says Dvora Entin, LCSW, PMH-C, a specialist in perinatal and reproductive mental health. Yet while we tend to sit with people’s grief in other areas of life, attending funerals and honoring lives and experiences—too often, fertility challenges and loss are met with a flood of pat, inappropriate, uncompassionate, non-empathetic responses: “You’ll get pregnant again!” “At least you have another child.” “This happened for a reason.” Loss is often invalidated, which compounds feelings of isolation. “People can wind up thinking, I’m not going to tell anybody about this because no one is going to get it,” says Entin. About 10 to 20 percent of known pregnancies end in loss; in the U.S., among heterosexual women ages 15 to 49 years with no prior births, about 19 percent struggle to get pregnant within a year of trying. Fertility struggles are common—and so is not knowing what to say to communicate thoughtfulness and sensitivity to a loved one experiencing them. These are just some suggestions for supporting someone through loss from a piece I wrote recently for @womenshealthmag. If you’ve experienced loss, tell me in the comments: What helped you the most? 🤍 #pregnancyandinfantlossawareness #pregnancyandinfantlossawarenessmonth #pregnancyandinfantloss #ihadamiscarriage #earlypregnancyloss #miscarriagesupport #miscarriageawareness #miscarriage