Bas Janse has wanted children for as long as he can remember, but when he met his girlfriend Femke ten years ago, that was not immediately what he thought about. Other things took precedence for a long time. Until a year or three years ago. “And then suddenly it turns out that it doesn’t work.”
After a long IVF process, the pregnancy test was finally positive. Full of expectation, Bas and his girlfriend walked into the sonographer’s room for the six-week ultrasound. And then it was wrong: no heart activity.
“It may sound naive, but I had not taken into account that this could also happen,” says Janse (42). “You are in the euphoria of imminent fatherhood. Nobody had prepared us for this. And the sonographer communicated it as if it were nothing.”
To their sorrow, the second pregnancy also ended in a miscarriage. The embryo appeared to have stopped growing after eight weeks. “It felt like a slap in the face. In one go we were back to square one,” says Janse. “But it helps us to realize that it is nature that determines. We have to relinquish control.”
In addition, Janse and his girlfriend have a lot of support from each other and the people around them. But he did notice something: “All the attention around this loss went to my girlfriend. I was forgotten. Is my grief less because it’s not my body? I’m also half of the pregnancy, right?”
Miscarriage has long been seen as a women’s problem
Janse missed experiences of other men who have also experienced a miscarriage and also feel forgotten in the grieving process. But nothing could be found online. That’s why he started a forum himself: The forgotten father, on which men can share their emotions. “A child’s wish can be just as big for a man and a miscarriage just as sad as for the woman,” says Janse.
Gynecologist Marie-Louise van der Hoorn and Lisa Lashley of the Leiden hospital LUMC also agree that the father is often forgotten in a miscarriage. For a long time it was seen as a women’s problem. All scientific studies have therefore focused on the mother, but Van der Hoorn and Lashley are now investigating the role of the father in repeated miscarriage.
Of course, no one is to blame for a miscarriage, but women often think that it is only their fault.
“If breaks occur in the head of a sperm cell, where the DNA is stored, we speak of sperm DNA fragmentation. This may be related to repeated miscarriages,” explains Van der Hoorn.
So we have to get rid of the idea that the cause of a miscarriage always lies with the woman, says Lashley. “In this way we give the man an unimportant role. While they too can do something to reduce the risk of miscarriage. Such as smoking less, so that the quality of the sperm is not affected.”
What’s more, this focus on the man also has a positive effect on the woman: the “blame” isn’t just hers, Lashley adds. “Of course no one is to blame for a miscarriage, but women often think that it is only their fault.”
Father is taken more and more seriously in the consulting room
In addition to more scientific research into the man and miscarriages, a lot can also change in the consulting room. It is now standard practice at the LUMC for both the mother and the father to attend appointments and for men to be asked the same questions (for example about family history and lifestyle). But this is by no means the case everywhere, say Van der Hoorn and Lashley.
The two gynecologists are also working on the new Dutch guideline for recurrent miscarriages, in which the word ‘woman’ is now everywhere being changed to the word ‘couple’. “This seems like a very small thing, but it is an important step for taking the father more seriously,” says Van der Hoorn.
Men often slap each other on the shoulder and that should be enough.
The man still often assumes a supporting role: he has to be there for his wife and ignores his own feelings, says Nadia du Fossé, doctor at LUMC. She also conducted research into the role of men in the occurrence of miscarriages and into the emotional support that men need. This is often different from the woman.
“Women benefit greatly from the support of family and friends or a social worker. Men seem to need this less.” Or they look for it less.
Men learn to talk about feelings on forum
In any case, Janse sees that many men find support on the forum. “Men still often think they have to be tough. They often slap each other on the shoulder and that should be enough.”
But on the forum the men get a chance to vent. They realize that talking about a miscarriage is really not taboo and learn to share their feelings, says Janse. “I even get messages from men who say that the forum has saved their relationship. Their relationship was hanging by a thread because they couldn’t talk about the miscarriage. Now that they share their feelings with other men, they know how.”
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