Woman Who Suffered Pregnancy Loss Says Healthcare Facilities Need Separate Waiting Rooms

A woman reconciling with the loss of her pregnancy uploaded a tearful exhortation to healthcare facilities imploring them to implement separate waiting areas for mothers who haven't lost their children from women who've experienced complications with their pregnancies.

India Batson (@india_batson) published a viral TikTok on her loss, writing in a caption for the video: "Have you ever been in the waiting room after loss?" she wrote.

Before launching into her own experience in having to deal with learning her baby no longer carried a heartbeat.

"I would like to make a recommendation to OBGYN offices to have a different waiting area if you are there for a miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy, a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, if you're there for loss, I'd like for there to be a separate waiting room than, than the regular waiting room."

She continued with her argument for the separated rooms: "Because sitting in that waiting room next to tons of pregnant women while you wait to go back just to get blood work to see if the ECG's back to zero...sucks! Like, it absolutely sucks, there is no other way to phrase it," she said in her clip.

India continued, "And I didn't expect it to make me so emotional, to be back in the place to get my blood work where I found out that there was no longer a heartbeat. I wasn't expecting to like have like this rush of emotions come back in the room. Like oh this is, this is where I find out there's no longer a heartbeat, like I don't know how to explain it, I just kind of like, brought all the emotions back."

She went on: "Golly, pregnancy loss is hard. It's not even 12 o'clock yet y'all," she says at the end of the clip before it ultimately cuts out.

It appears that some folks expressed that they were affected by her messaging in the video.

"i work in Healthcare design and will always keep this in mind now," one person said.

"Having been on both sides, I completely agree," another replied.

While there was another TikTok user who said that the OB-GYN they visited was actually extremely considerate in handling the loss of their pregnancy.

"My OB let me sit in my car, texted me when she was ready for me, and let me in the back door. She had a special room without birth announcements and stuff too. That should be the norm. I’m so sorry."

Another person touched upon the psychological duress they underwent as a result of being around pregnant individuals following their own pregnancy losses: "Sitting there when a couple walks out smiling with ultrasound pictures was like a punch in the gut"

Someone else shared an anecdote of their own experience in a similar situation: "As a very pregnant woman I support this so much. At one of my last appointments, there was this sweet girl there who was crying her eyes out and it wasn’t fair that I was there in front of her."

"THIS. And a separate exit route. I had a missed miscarriage. I had to walk through the waiting room sobbing after learning of our loss! I just put my head down and tried not to make eye contact," another wrote.

And there were other healthcare workers who discussed the precautions they take to ensure that other pregnant women aren't being alerted to other folks' pregnancies/deliveries: "We have a lullaby that plays through the ER after the moms give birth in L&D.. I said they shouldn't be playing that down here.. since we have women that come in for miscarriages, ectopic, and SA."

India isn't the first woman to suffer the loss of a child during pregnancy who wished their doctor's bedside manner had been not so cold.

Dr. Lora Shahine was featured in a piece penned by Kidspot in which she starts discussing what it's like being a fertility doctor, and how to not break the news to a patient that they've suffered a miscarriage. She's also published tons of other videos on fertility in general.

Have you ever felt put off by the way a healthcare facility treated you after you'd undergone treatment with them? Do you feel like they could've had a better bedside manner?