A bill will be debated on March 8 to set up a psychological support protocol for women facing a miscarriage.
- A bill aims to create a psychological support course for women who have had a miscarriage.
- This text will be debated in the National Assembly on March 8.
- Women could be accompanied by psychologists from the “Mon Psy” scheme.
It is a symbolic date. On March 8, International Women’s Rights Day, the National Assembly is expected to study and debate a bill aimed at setting up a psychological support protocol for women and their spouses facing a miscarriage.
Psychological support in the event of a miscarriage
This text is presented by Modem MP Sandrine Josso. This bill seeks to create a “real support program for couples faced with a miscarriage with adapted and personalized psychological follow-up, covered by health insurance“, she explains to West France.
A miscarriage can be defined as a spontaneous termination of pregnancy during the first five months. “Even if the miscarriage is a natural phenomenon whose medical support is well controlled, the psychological consequences are identified but not supported”, develops Sandrine Josso at Ouest France.
Indeed, according to the terms of the bill posted by the deputy on her Twitter account, “in France, one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage. It is estimated that one in 10 women goes through this ordeal in her lifetime. (…) This frequent event therefore often remains trivialized for at least 200,000 women per year and their entourage.”.
Losing a child is an ordeal and the psychological consequences can be significant for women: “notorious states of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress episode”, according to the bill which also specifies that “nearly one in three women suffer from post-traumatic stress, with symptoms of reliving, avoidance and neurovegetative hypervigilance that can last, for one in six, for up to nine months“.
A device for women and their spouses reimbursed
Thus, with this bill, the deputy wishes to change things. Each Regional Health Agency (ARS) should set up a miscarriage course that brings together medical professionals and hospital and liberal psychologists. Everything would be covered by health insurance.
Midwives will also be able to refer their patients and spouses directly to a psychologist approved by Health Insurance, as part of the “MonPsy” system. All patients should be informed of this assistance.
Sandrine Josso hopes that the implementation of this course can come into effect from September 1, 2024. A text which represents, according to her statements in Ouest France, “a major advance for the benefit of women’s mental health, too often and for too long underestimated after a miscarriage event”.
For now, the Social Affairs Commission of the National Assembly voted unanimously for this bill on March 1st. The rest, in the hemicycle, will therefore take place on March 8.