Kym Marsh has opened up about why the term “late miscarriage” angers her.
The 40-year-old was discussing the terminology around baby loss with neonatal death charity Sands ahead of the airing of her miscarriage storyline on ‘Coronation Street’.
Marsh gave birth to Archie, who was her first child with her now ex-husband Jamie Lomas, in February 2009 - 19 weeks before his due date. Archie died shortly after he was born.
“That was one of the things that really got to me, when they called my son a late miscarriage,” Marsh told The Huffington Post UK and other reporters.
“It really annoyed me and it angered me. I had just given birth to a baby, I didn’t miscarry my baby, I gave birth to him, why is there no birth certificate?”
Marsh continued: “The clue is in the name, ‘birth certificate’. So why? Because he didn’t survive? Because he wasn’t ‘viable’. What is that?
“When I’m not here anymore, noone will know that my baby existed. And that’s the thing that upsets a lot of women, where you can’t have a birth certificate.
“I really think that’s something that really affects a lot of women. I’ve had tweets this week going ‘Oh I hate that word, ‘late miscarriage’.’
“And I would love for us to not use the term.”
Kate Oates, a ‘Coronation Street’ producer, said she believes airing such storylines could change the way people talk about topics that are currently “taboo”.
“I think it’s about giving us an opportunity to review the way people talk, to review the way people respond,” she said.
“But let’s all talk about it and just reassess because, when I was looking at the protocols and how there has been no change in protocols for late miscarriage and haven’t for a long time, I found that really surprising.
“Hopefully we’re all growing and we’re all evolving and we all talk more and have these kinds of discussions, but I was surprised to realise how outdated some of those systems were, and that’s part of the big point of telling this story.”
Erica Stewart, a spokesperson from stillbirth and neonatal death charity Sands, said: “I think society has a problem with death, and baby death, because it’s unique, people can’t relate because they can’t imagine that you grieve for something you didn’t know.
“It’s the loss, as Kym says in one of the episodes, it’s the loss of your future. Everything you’ve been mapping out, the baby’s life. And then that’s all just gone away and your life has tipped upside down.
‘Coronation Street’ continues on Friday 13 January at 7.30pm. For more information on stillbirth and neonatal death, contact Sands.