I am most grateful for the opportunity to raise this very distressing subject in the House this evening. I am grateful to the Table Office for helping me with the wording of this motion. It says "women suffering miscarriages and stillbirths", and that is exactly what women do.

First, I would like to acknowledge the help that I have received in preparing for this debate from Christine Moulder, who has written a book on miscarriage, and also from the Miscarriage Association.

I want to kick off with one or two definitions. Doctors call all miscarriages "spontaneous abortions"—very different from induced abortions. "Miscarriage", in the present context, is the spontaneous loss of a foetus and stillbirth is the loss of a baby over 28 weeks.

I am very well aware that there are some unwanted pregnancies and that, with these women, a miscarriage can often come as a blessed relief. I realise that, but I do not wish to touch any further on that particular aspect tonight. So why raise this subject at all?

Miscarriage is astonishingly common. At least 30 per cent. of pregnant women experience the loss of a conceived baby before the seventh month of pregnancy. That is hundreds of thousands of babies. This is bad enough, but there is massive bitterness and anger among women who miscarry. Why is this? There are two main reasons.

First, the whole subject seems to be taboo, and where there is silence there is ignorance. I do not want to turn miscarriage into something suitable for gossip on social occasions; it is far too important a subject for that. But everyone in this country will have a friend, a relative or a wife who has miscarried and it is much better to talk about it with sympathy and understanding than to try to sweep

The second reason is the attitude of some in the medical profession. It is most certainly not my aim to take a swipe at the medical profession in general terms. But there are far too many instances of neglect, indifference and sometimes downright cruelty. I quote some comments from women who have had miscarriages on the treatment they received at the hands of the medical profession: Doctors don't care. They turn you out of hospital and don't even bother to talk to you. This is a comment from a woman who miscarried at 12 weeks: I saw the foetus and kept it in a dish for the doctor to see. He glanced at it to see that I had had a complete miscarriage than he casually flushed it down the loo. Life is absolute hell. I feel hurt, angry and completely in the dark. If anyone else says, 'Never mind, you can have another', or, 'It's natures way of telling you something was wrong with the baby', I shall scream! Another women said: Why didn't any doctor bother to tell me what to do when I had a miscarriage? Why did no one warn me I might haemorrhage? How was I to know the dangers? Yet another wrote: It happened 17 years ago, but I have never got over it. The depression lasted years and nearly broke up my marriage. All because no one talked to me about it. Finally, perhaps the most harrowing story of all: The consultant was sweet. My own doctor was superb. But the staff at the hospital were horrible. They said, 'You haven't really lost a baby. It was nothing much at this stage. Why are you making so much fuss?' I had five hours of excruciating pain, much worse than childbirth, then no one talked to me or told me a thing. I didn't know what they had done with the dead baby—thrown it in the incinerator, I suppose. Then they wheeled me down the main ward through all the happy mothers holding their new babies. A girl in the next bed was there for an abortion. She asked me, 'Are you here to get rid of yours?' If I had been able to get off the trolley, I would have dragged her out of bed and knocked her down. From all this one can only assume that there are too many members of the medical profession who see miscarriage simply as just another physical condition that needs such-and-such treatment. That is a very grave misjudgment. What a woman who has had a miscarriage has suffered is a bereavement, for which grief and mourning are entirely appropriate.

In a recent survey members of the Miscarriage Association revealed that 80 per cent. of them were left feeling angry and bitter by their experiences. Of those, no fewer than 66 per cent. thought that the medical treatment that they had had was inadequate, even poor. These women complained that they received no information, no counselling and no advice. Often after a miscarriage a woman goes home to relatives who, though well meaning, carefully avoid the subject, just at the time when she most needs to talk about it.

So what is to be done? I should like to put the following six suggestions to the Minister. The first is pre-natal care. When women first go to see their general practitioner at the start of a pregnancy they should be told about the possibility of a miscarriage, what it is and what happens. I realise very well that there will be women who at the start of a pregnancy are very happy and that they will not want to hear about even the possibility of a miscarriage. Nevertheless, I feel that they should be told about it.

My second suggestion relates to scans. Access to scans needs to be improved, especially in an emergency. That includes weekends. We all know that emergencies almost always arise at weekends, or at bank holidays or in the middle of the night. Scan operators should be allowed to tell their patients the results as soon as possible, not hours later when the information often has to be relayed through doctors and consultants back to the woman concerned.

My third suggestion concerns disposal arrangements —a very sensitive issue. The loss should be treated with respect and dignity, not just flushed down the lavatory or consigned to the incinerator with the rest of the hospital waste. This is not a waste product.

Fourthly, there is the question of follow-up care. Many women are sent away from hospital without a single word of explanation or comfort. What came across to me very strongly when I was making my preparations for this debate was that very many women would have felt much better if only someone at the hospital had perhaps held their hand, or put an arm round them and just offered some words of comfort. It does not cost anything to do that, nor does it take much time. These women should be given the opportunity to discuss what has happened with an informed and, above all, sympathetic health professional. Some women will need access to skilled counsellors, although this is rarely available. I referred, in one of my anecdotes, to one woman who said that the depression following a miscarriage lasted for 17 years. Every health authority should plan the provision of follow-up care involving both hospital services and community services. There are practical matters too on which a woman will need advice. How long can she expect her bleeding to continue after miscarriage? Should she use tampons or sanitary towels? Nobody tells her. How can she know? Not only is she left prey to depression and anxiety and, very often, a great deal of physical pain, but she does not even know the answers to such questions.

The fifth suggestion concerns statistics. Detailed miscarriage statistics according to class and region are not available. I realise the difficulties, but even an approximation would be very helpful.

The sixth, and final, suggestion relates to the Miscarriage Association. This association does excellent work. However good the health service provision, many women need the support and information that only such a support group can give. The Miscarriage Association has branches in various places all over the country. Its headquarters is in Yorkshire. It could do so much more. Its founder recounted that, at the beginning, she was on the telephone until the small hours of the morning. She said that she did not get out of her nightdress until about tea time. Her phone rang and rang and rang. She talked to desperate women who had suffered miscarriage and who wanted to talk to someone about their experiences.

I am afraid that my hon. Friend the Minister is looking slightly uncomfortable when I talk about money. I know that the Miscarriage Association, like many other organisations promoting worthy causes, has approached him. Nevertheless, I press upon him the excellent work that it does.

I hope that in dealing with this subject tonight I have done two things: first, raised public consciousness of this extremely important but much-ignored matter; secondly, drawn attention to the fact that those who have suffered miscarriage need not fear rejection at the hands of the public, or of their friends, or of their spouses, or feel that in some way they have failed.