After The Miscarriage

Physical recovery

Everyone is different, but many women find that it can take them anything from a few days to a few weeks to recover physically from a miscarriage. You may find that you are particularly tired or feel generally run down.  Or you may feel better or simply relieved once the process has happened, especially if it took a long time or if there was a long period where it wasn’t clear if you were miscarrying or not.

All sorts of things can have an impact on your recovery, including how much bleeding you have had and how long the process has taken. There are no absolutes, but if you are worried that it is taking you a long time to recover physically, it might be worth talking to your GP.

Most women will get a period somewhere between four and six weeks after their miscarriage, and it may be heavier and longer than usual.

After the miscarriage: what happens to your baby

Some women and their partners do not know what happened to their baby or the remains of their pregnancy and many want to find out.

The bodies of babies who are stillborn (that is, born dead after 24 weeks of pregnancy), or who are born alive but then die, must by law be buried or cremated. For babies who die during pregnancy before 24 weeks, the situation is different because there is no law that governs what happens to these babies.

After a late miscarriage, most hospitals offer a simple funeral and either burial or cremation. Some hospitals offer this for all babies, no matter how early the loss and whether or not there is a fully formed body. Hospital practice is improving all the time, but sadly some hospitals may still treat the remains of an early loss as clinical waste.

If you want to find out about the arrangements at your hospital, ask a nurse or midwife on the ward or unit where you were cared for, the hospital chaplain, the PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison) officer, or the hospital bereavement service.

You may want to make your own arrangements for burying or cremating the remains of your baby, whether you use a funeral director or choose to bury the remains at home or somewhere else.