Misleading Claims About Stress and Miscarriages
It's becoming a kind of a pet peeve of mine when I read articles about purported miscarriage myths. Most of these articles consist of lists of so-called myths about what does and doesn't cause miscarriages, which is a noble enough goal, but quite often these types of articles end up simply creating new myths.
The specific example I am thinking of is the claim that it is a myth that stress is linked to risk of miscarriage. Now, it is quite true that no one has proven that stress causes miscarriages, but the idea can't rightly be called a myth either. There is actually a good pile of research linking stress and biological stress markers to miscarriages. But that research could ultimately mean a lot of different things. It is possible that ultimately some sort of link will be found between stress and some miscarriages (and also possible that no link will ever be found).
But just because there is no proven causal link, does that mean we can call the stress-miscarriage link a "myth"? I don't think so. I think "myth" carries the implication that something that is not true, and this is something that might or might not be true, so it is misleading to say it is a myth.
That being said, I can see the conundrum in reporting about it. It is hard to talk about stuff like stress and miscarriages because there is already such a tendency toward self blame among moms (been there, done that). Any implication that stress might be linked to miscarriage can add fuel to that fire, leading moms who were stressed at the time of their miscarriages to assume that was the cause and blame themselves (even though any potential link that might someday be found would probably affect only a small minority of miscarriages). At the same time, I think that outright refusal to consider the possibility only does moms a disservice. If there is a link between stress and miscarriages, and that's a big if, I think it is better to know about and understand the link than to pretend it doesn't exist.
Anyway, that's my rant for the day. Here's some more information:
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