Mother who suffered miscarriages says Meghan’s story ‘brings subject to fore’

A mother who suffered four miscarriages has urged the conversation around pregnancy loss to continue after the Duchess of Sussex spoke out about losing a baby.

Kathryn Sheppard, 45, from Rhondda in South Wales, said mothers and couples often “suffer in silence” despite pregnancy loss being “very, very common”.

She applauded Meghan for her deeply personal article in the New York Times, in which the duchess shared her experience of losing her second child in a miscarriage.

Mrs Sheppard suffered four pregnancy losses and, due to being pregnant with twins in 2008, lost five babies before the birth of her daughter Rebecca in 2013.

The 45-year-old told the PA news agency: “Some people may say, ‘Oh it was early, it was nothing, it was a ball of cells’.

“No, as soon as that pregnancy test comes back positive, your life has changed. You could lose at five weeks, you could lose at 40 weeks –-you have lost your hopes, you have lost your dreams.

“Life changes the minute that test turns positive and that’s what I could relate to when the duchess spoke about that grief.”

Mrs Sheppard said she was “thrown into depression” following her second miscarriage, being prescribed antidepressants and referred for eight weeks of pregnancy loss counselling.

Recalling her fourth miscarriage, she said she became “used to miscarrying”, adding: “It became normal to miscarry. I know that’s a shocking thing to say, but it did. I never expected anything else.”

On the grief expressed by Meghan in the article, published on Wednesday, Mrs Sheppard said that it was important for those of a higher profile to speak out about pregnancy loss.

“I applaud the Duchess of Sussex for what she has done because it brings the subject to the fore,” she said.

“She’s royalty but she’s still a human, she’s still lost, she still feels, and it’s just that connection.”

Mrs Sheppard, whose daughter Rebecca is now seven, said she became a media volunteer for the charity Miscarriage Association to share her story and stop people thinking they were going through it alone.

“We are all in this together even though we are separate, you know what I’m going through. I do think it will help and that’s why we have to talk about it,” she added.

“Because we don’t want women to suffer in silence because they have lost something that they absolutely love and adore.”