Dr. Jessica Zucker is a pioneer when it comes to normalizing pregnancy loss and miscarriages. She created the #IHadaMiscarriage campaign in 2014 (about which we interviewed her at Kveller).
Throughout the past few years, she’s worked on several different projects, including a line of empathy cards for people who have experienced miscarriage and stillbirth, as well as a line of “rainbow baby”-themed T-shirts and tote bags for moms and infants.
Her latest endeavor, however, has been collaborating with illustrators to create beautiful pictures that people can share on social media in order to normalize pregnancy loss–and build a community of support. Zucker was recently featured in the New York Times in a piece that showcased her collaboration with illustrator Ryan Alexander-Tanner . The illustrated discussion is beautiful and shows a lot of ways to be compassionate and supportive of someone who just suffered a loss.
Here’s a piece from the collection below:
But don’t forget to check out her other collaborations. Here’s a piece she did with illustrator Nora Leinad.
She also made these cool t-shirts normalizing pregnancy loss:
Here’s another collaboration with Samantha Hahn:
And, here are some of her other groundbreaking Instagram posts:
@cloudsthatcry in the United Kingdom shares: “Seven years ago today we went for our first ever scan, at that magic 12 weeks. We had made it. I was so excited. But still, part of me knew. Your first time, you don’t know that the time between the wand going on your stomach and the time the sonographer speaks should only be short. The time dragged, I held his hand tighter. And we heard the words, ‘I’m sorry, there is no heartbeat, it appears your baby died at 7 weeks’. Our whole world fell apart. We were supposed to be showing excited grandparents a photo, not telling them this. I was going to call my brother and tell him Happy Birthday Uncle. Instead there was this. I’d been carrying my dead child inside me for weeks. _ That wasn’t to be the last time we heard those words. It wasn’t to be the last time I sat and sobbed in that room, that my husband picked me back up, held me and kept me going. It wasn’t the last time we had to tell people we had lost our child. Or the last time I went under anaesthetic for surgery to my miscarriages. We have lost more children than I kiss good night. Every day we miss them, and on days like today I remember them even more. _ We got our rainbows, our miracles. It took so long, so many tears and so much heartbreak. But they are here, we are still here. Stronger than ever.” _ #IHadAMiscarriage #miscarriage #recurrentmiscarriage #grief #loss #pregnancyafterloss #rainbowbaby #motherhood #1in4 // Image found via @xomatok.
A post shared by Jessica Zucker, Ph.D. (@ihadamiscarriage) on Mar 10, 2017 at 6:17pm PST