When Rebecca went for a private pregnancy scan at six weeks, she felt reassured. “They told me they could see activity in the foetal pole (a thickening of the yolk sac, ie the sign you look for just before a foetal heartbeat can be detected), so I felt really confident,” she tells Stylist. A week later, while on holiday in Greece, she noticed a small smear of blood (which isn’t unusual in pregnancy) and a short cessation of pregnancy symptoms. 

On her return to the UK, the bleeding resumed, and having been turned away from A&E, Rebecca eventually had a scan in the early pregnancy unit a week before she was due to have her routine 12-week scan. “It was there that I found out that I’d had a missed miscarriage. I thought I was 11 weeks pregnant, but in fact the pregnancy had stopped developing five weeks earlier.”

A missed (or silent) miscarriage happens when a pregnancy stops progressing but you don’t get any symptoms like bleeding or pain; you might even continue to feel pregnant and have pregnancy symptoms. It’s only when you go for a routine ultrasound scan that you might find out that you’ve miscarried – that there’s no heartbeat or that the foetus is much smaller than it should be at that stage. 

While any kind of pregnancy loss can be devastating, missed miscarriages are probably best characterised by shock. It can be incredibly difficult to come to terms with the fact that you didn’t know the pregnancy had ended when it did.

As Rebecca succinctly puts it: “It makes you realise that your body can lie to you – and then it becomes impossible to trust it.”

Her story is a familiar one. Lydia, 34, had a missed miscarriage last year having already had a miscarriage a few months earlier. “I booked a private scan to check all was OK at 10 weeks, but unfortunately the scan revealed that the baby had stopped growing at six weeks. I had medical management to help pass the pregnancy and while everyone I dealt with at the NHS was absolutely wonderful and so empathetic, it felt like there was a real lack of awareness and information about miscarriage and missed miscarriage.” 

Miscarriage is relatively common: one in four women are thought to experience one throughout their reproductive lives. And while the cause isn’t always obvious, it’s thought that most early losses are linked to chromosomal abnormalities in the baby.

The reason it might be ‘missed’ or ‘silent’ is because it takes longer for pregnancy hormones to drop after some miscarriages and it’s those hormones that keep us feeling pregnant for weeks after the pregnancy has technically ended. Tommy’s, the pregnancy and baby loss charity, says that as yet we don’t know why that happens.  

Once a missed miscarriage has been diagnosed, you’ll be offered the same three management options as other forms of early pregnancy loss:

1. Expectant management (waiting for the miscarriage to happen by itself)
2. Medical management (taking pills to speed things along)
3. Surgical management (having the pregnancy tissue removed using either local or general anaesthetic)

As ever, you’ll be guided through each option to find out which one is best for you. Tommy’s has a downloadable decision tool to help you decide which form of management to take. 

“I’m currently pregnant for the third time and am just three weeks away from my due date,” says Lydia. “I feel incredibly lucky to have got this far, but miscarriage really changes your experience of pregnancy, and I felt like my friends and family, while brilliant and supportive, just didn’t understand. The missed miscarriage has caused me to doubt what’s going on in my own body, and I’ve had a really anxious time being pregnant again.”

Because data on miscarriage is so scarce (hence Stylist’s Every Loss Counts campaign), we don’t know how many losses are ‘missed’. It’s impossible to say what percentage of miscarriages are silent, but anecdotally, we know it’s common. While that might not come as immediate comfort, it’s worth bearing in mind if you’re struggling to trust your own body. Missed miscarriage is a hormonal reality and not a case of being in or out of tune with your body.

If you or a loved one is going through a missed miscarriage, you can find plenty of support on the Tommy’s website. We’ve also put together a guide for supporting dads and non-birthing partners through miscarriage and pregnancy loss. 

Images: Getty