From Hazard to Blessing to Tragedy: Representations of Miscarriage in Twentieth-Century America

Reagan discusses how medical institutions produced and shaped women's experiences and emotions after miscarriage. As views of miscarriage changes dramatically, medical professionals, social workers, and reporters utilized politically loaded terms and symbols to instruct women how to feel about their miscarriages. She comments that one of the mistakes of the current demand for grief and mourning following a miscarriage is the thought that one's own individual emotional response to a given event is universal.