Myleene Klass opens up on struggling to say the word 'miscarriage' while filming documentary
**Trigger warning: The following article contains discussion of miscarriage and baby loss.**
Earlier this year, Myleene Klass changed history after campaigning for four years for the government to implement better support for women who miscarry.
The former Hear'Say singer, 45, called for a change in pregnancy loss laws after suffering four miscarriages.
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In a celebratory Instagram post shared in July, Myleene and Olivia Blake MP stood outside parliament knowing that women will no longer have to wait until three consecutive miscarriages (called recurrent miscarriage) to get medical help and women will now have pre-conception advice and access to mental health support.
“I said to the professors at [pregnancy loss charity] Tommy's, ‘So please, can you talk me through why we wait for three? I don't know why it never occurred to me before, but the room went silent because it never occurred to anybody." Myleene told Tyla.
"There is no logical or medical explanation. In the UK, it's three. In America, it's two. It's just a random misogynistic number that's been pulled out.”
Although Myleene now talks about her miscarriages publicly, she once struggled to say the word, a challenge that she confronted while filming her BAFTA nominated documentary Myleene Klass: Miscarriage & Me in 2021.
Before making the doc, Myleene bravely revealed in a candid Instagram post in October 2020 that she had had four miscarriages, stating that she is a 'mama to 7 babies, Ava, Hero, Apollo my rainbow baby and 4 little stars in the sky' for National Baby Loss Miscarriage Day.
Reflecting on the experience filming the documentary, Myleene exclusively told Tyla: "When I first started filming with my documentary team, I actually said I can’t say ‘miscarriage’ and the word was in the title and the conversations were happening around the table and it was a really hard thing for me to say, and I think anyone who's experienced a miscarriage will understand you lock that pain away - you lock it at the back of your throat and devalue your heart because it's just so utterly horrific.”
The I’m a Celeb alum previously told Tyla that she'd said ‘no’ to filming the doc ‘about three times’ before being convinced otherwise.
Looking back on making the doc, she added: “I realised that it was just going to have to be something I had to find the strength to do otherwise I wouldn't be able to do what I needed to. But it took every ounce of strength.”
Having been in the spotlight for over two decades, Myleene decided to use her platform to campaign for changes to the Women’s Health Strategy in Parliament.
In July, the Department of Health and Social Care announced a bunch of new measures to ‘boost the health and wellbeing of women and girls’, which included a pilot scheme to ensure women have medical intervention after each miscarriage.
Women who suffer a miscarriage can request a certificate as an official recognition of their loss plus better collection and storage of remains. The certificate will be available to anyone who loses a baby pre-24 weeks’ gestation.
But Myleene said her work ‘has not stopped’ after changing history this summer, and said 'it’s really only now just beginning to sink in’ because she’s starting to hear from doctors who are implementing the ‘gargantuan, David and Goliath’ changes at their clinics for women who have just had miscarriages.
There’s still more work to be done, especially around the language used to describe women’s healthcare and miscarriage.
“Women have been silenced in their healthcare for many, many years not even just the term ‘you just gotta get on with it’, ‘you'll pick yourself up you'll be okay’, ‘women have been suffering like this for ages’ or, ‘my grandmother went through it, you'll be fine’ - It's just that dismissed language." she said.
“There's also the negative language that surrounds women's health - ‘infertile’, ‘miscarriage’, ‘incompetent cervix’, ‘blighted ovum’. Everything is shrouded in shame.
“The language itself just doesn't make you feel that you can say it because it makes you feel like you've failed and therefore, the fact that your body fails to do the job that you feel it should be able to do is a terrible, terrible feeling.”
She added: “There is so much shame shrouded within the conversations of miscarriage and that is why I continue talking about it. My children talk about it now, they can say the word that I couldn’t because it happens in 1 in 4 pregnancies [according to Tommy's].
"It’s all around us, you will absolutely know someone that has had a miscarriage. It’s a conversation that everybody should be involved in.”
The 9th-15th October marks Baby Loss Awareness Week. For help, support and advice, you can contact charity Tommy's here.
Topics: Celebrity, Health, Myleene Klass
Gregory Robinson