Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] I would like to thank the member for Werriwa for putting together this motion to mark International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. This is a very important day because, as members have said in previous contributions to this discussion, losing an infant or losing a pregnancy is not spoken about in the same way as losing someone else in your family is spoken about. For a lot of people, miscarriage is not spoken about at all, despite over 110,000 Australians a year experiencing a miscarriage. It's not spoken about much, but that doesn't mean, as many members have said, that the grief is not real and present and is only made harder by the fact that, in many cases, people aren't able to speak about it. I have to say that comments such as, 'Oh, well, you'll be able to get pregnant again,' are not helpful. Certainly, that has been my personal experience, having lost two pregnancies to miscarriag Hearing those sorts of comments from well-meaning people is very difficult, because the loss is real. The loss is there, and it can carry on for some time. I think that many people, after they've experienced a miscarriage, feel that they have to soldier on and just get on with it—to just continue to get on with their daily lives. That was certainly my experience after a miscarriage. I came back to parliament within two days, feeling I had to get on with life and not really speaking about it much at all. It is an important message, as we think about this day and think about Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month; it is important to talk about it.

Previous speakers have spoken about prevention, and that is really important. When we talk about prevention, we need to do everything we can to make sure that everything is put in place, from a public health perspective, to reduce the instances of infant loss and stillbirth, in particular. I'd like to acknowledge the huge amount of work done by Kristina Keneally, Catryna Bilyk and the other members of the Senate committee, who have worked very hard to look at what needs to be done to prevent stillbirth. Sadly, Indigenous women are 50 per cent more likely to have a stillborn baby, so there is more work that can be done.

An important message on this day of remembrance is that, sometimes, it's just a really sad, unfortunate issue about which nothing can be done. That was certainly my experience, when I had what was called a 'missed miscarriage', which is not very common. That is where you think everything is okay. You turn up to the doctor and have a scan, and no heartbeat can be found. That is particularly traumatic. It's not something that you think is going to happen; you rock up for your scan expecting to hear good news. For me, it was a very difficult situation when no heartbeat could be found. Nothing could have been done to prevent that—it was one of those difficult situations—but it doesn't mean the loss is not felt equally as hard.

So, on Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, it's important that we remember. It's important that we commit to take all the steps we can to prevent these sorts of occurrences, but it's also important to accept that there are circumstances where nothing can change the course of this loss. It's important to remember, to acknowledge, to grieve and to make sure that our society and community are able to talk about these things. It's not good enough that people don't feel that they can talk about these losses. It's important for it to be properly acknowledged by others. We need to commit ourselves to that understanding and commit ourselves to grieve with others who have lost. Most importantly, on this motion, I would like to say to all of those who have lost an infant or miscarried a baby: I'm sorry for your loss.

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