Hilaria Baldwin hopes to help women "find support" after revealing she might be going through a miscarriage.
Alec and Hilaria Baldwin
The health and wellness expert told her Instagram followers last week that she was expecting her fifth child with husband Alec Baldwin - with whom she already has Carmen, five, Rafael, three, Leonardo, two, and Romeo, 10 months - but accompanied the announcement with the tragic news that she believes she is miscarrying their tot.
And now, Hilaria has said her decision to speak up throughout the process came as she wants to provide support for other women who are going through or have been through miscarriage, as she says too many women go through the grieving process in silence.
She said: "With pregnancy, you're trained not to say anything about it for 12 weeks - the first trimester - when the risk of miscarriage is the highest. There's superstition, but there's also the fear that you might do something wrong and lose the baby. And that if you lose the baby, people are going to blame you, for eating the wrong way, for sleeping on the wrong side, for exercising too much or too little ... the list goes on.
"Even before I got pregnant, I thought about what it would be like to have to share news like this. Having a miscarriage would hurt if I went through it in silence and it would hurt if I lost the pregnancy in front of everybody, I realised. At least sharing my story might help me and other women dealing with a miscarriage to find support."
Hilaria, 35, admitted she has worried about miscarrying with each of her previous four pregnancies, and felt that she shouldn't stay quiet because she and other women like her need to do "whatever they need to heal".
She added in an essay for Glamour magazine: "Pregnancy loss is a topic that touches almost everyone - 10 to 25 percent of all known pregnancies end in miscarriage. I'm not surprised at how common they are. Almost every single one of my friends has experienced some kind of struggle with infertility or miscarriage. I had such a fear of miscarriage with each of my pregnancies that I'd google the probability of miscarriage each day. And yet we're still so quiet about it. For me, this doesn't make sense. I understand why some women choose to keep this pain private, but it's such a personal thing - some people need to process the loss on their own, and others need to process it more publicly. Women deserve to have the option to do whatever they need to heal. (sic)"
The beauty made her miscarriage concerns public last week when she posted a picture of her small baby bump, and said the chances of her having a fifth child this time around are "very very small".
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