There are several places on our website where you can read how some women and their partners have felt after losing a baby. Some have miscarried early in pregnancy, others later; some have been through an ectopic or molar pregnancy; and for some there are circumstances that make their loss even harder to bear – fertility problems, for example, or some other difficulty in their lives.

Reading how other people have felt may help you think more clearly about what has happened to you and about how you feel. You will almost certainly find that some people have had similar feelings to yours, and that can be reassuring. But the experience of miscarriage is different for everyone. What the loss of your baby means to you, and how you feel about it, will be shaped by all kinds of things to do with the person you are and your particular circumstances. So, although you will probably find you share a lot with others, it's important to remember that no one else's experience of miscarriage will be exactly like yours.

This is what some people have said:

I've never cried so much in my whole life. I was walking about with an empty feeling where I should have been holding my baby.

 I keep on thinking it’s a punishment. I must have done something wrong.

 After the operation [for the ectopic], I was in complete shock – I had just found out I was pregnant and then it was suddenly all over. Not only had I lost the baby but I also felt physically damaged. Afterwards I focused on recovering physically, but emotionally I was completely numb.

 I wasn't sure if I was pregnant, so when it happened it was a shock and a relief at that time. After a few days I just carried on as normal.

You may be able to identify with some of these quotes. A miscarriage is not a major event for everyone, but it is for many, and most people are left with feelings of great sadness and regret. Many also feel shocked and confused. Some feel angry. Others feel guilty and wonder whether they have been responsible in some way. Some talk about feelings of emptiness, longing, loneliness and a lack of self-confidence. Others feel stressed, panicky and out of control.

For some, their feelings are intense but not overwhelming. Others are devastated by what they feel and for a time feel barely able to cope. Everyday tasks, whether at home or at work, can seem impossible to manage – or not worth doing. The world can feel turned upside down.

It is also common to feel loss in physical ways. A lot of women find they feel very tired – even some time after the miscarriage. You may also have headaches or stomach aches, feel short of breath or tight in the chest, be constipated, have diarrhoea, or find it hard to sleep. These symptoms will probably disappear in time, but if you feel worried, talk to your GP.

A particular kind of loss

Miscarriage is a particular kind of loss and brings particular feelings.

After a miscarriage, you grieve for a person you never knew, and for a relationship that ended before it really began. You grieve not for a person who has lived and died but for an unlived life. You grieve for the loss of your future as the parent of the baby who has died. You are sad not just because of what you have lost but because of what will never be.

This is different to grieving for, say, an elderly person who has died, and it can be hard for people who have no experience of miscarriage to understand.

Another way in which grief after the loss of a baby is different to other kinds of grief is that you might be thinking about the possibility of another pregnancy in the future. So your feelings about what has happened may be mixed with anxieties about why it happened, whether and when you might conceive again, and if you do conceive, whether you might lose the next baby too.

Read our leaflet "Pregnancy loss - how you might feel"