“With each one, a little of you dies” – portrayals of early pregnancy loss in films and TV-series

The physical experience of early involuntary pregnancy loss is often combined with strong emotions, such as grief, depression, guilt, and feelings of loneliness and isolation. Perinatal loss also occurs in fictional spaces. In this article, I will discuss the representation of pregnancy loss in fifteen anglophone TV series and films from the late 1990s until present day. The thematic analysis will shed light on the emotional, social, medical, and physical dimensions of perinatal loss. The analysis is rooted in feminist Critical Discourse Analysis paying close attention to the intersection of perinatal loss with social injustice, race, gender, and sexual orientation. The sampled on-screen depictions show pregnancy loss happens to people from varied backgrounds and the experience, although initially isolating, usually evolves into a social one, with the sufferer finding consolation through the support of others. Medical dramas are more likely to depict the physicality of the experience and rarer forms of perinatal loss. However, recurring miscarriages are overrepresented compared to real-life statistics. Ultimately, on-screen depictions often stop short of linking the personal to the societal, political, and medical, and thereby fail to escape the commonly held notion that miscarriages are somehow a personal failure.