Women have consistently held back from sharing their stories of loss and grief for fear that it will come off inappropriate. The game-changing move by the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, who opened up about her miscarriage in July will change for a long time how women approach grief and loss.

In a heartbreaking piece published in the New York Times, Meghan Markle reveals how she lost a pregnancy in July 2020 even as she nursed her child.

“I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second.” She said.

Miscarriage, unlike abortion, is not a conversation a lot of people like to have. The impact on the mental health of affected women is well established yet very few conversations are had about it.

What Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie highlighted in her most recent title Zikora about how women are expected to bottle up their pain is real and alive.

Meghan Markle noted in her piece that, losing a child means carrying an almost unbearable grief, experienced by many but talked about by few. In the pain of our loss, my husband and I discovered that in a room of 100 women, 10 to 20 of them will have suffered from miscarriage. Yet despite the staggering commonality of this pain, the conversation remains taboo, riddled with (unwarranted) shame, and perpetuating a cycle of solitary mourning.

That she wrote about it and publicly published her pain is bound to change the way women across the world approach pain and grief. Many women have been yearning for the license to speak openly about their pain. Meghan Markle’s piece is just one permission that is bound to go a long way.

Ado Aminu

Ado Aminu writes to expand human stories. When not reading, writing or arguing about how the patriarchy has and continues to ruin everything, you’ll find him daydreaming about his next cup of coffee. You can follow him on Twitter @PettyMuse.