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Miscarriage and Wellbeing

Cally Trench (Miscarriage) Baby Goddesses (1991 and 1995)

Overview 

Miscarriage and Wellbeing: Performative Rituals for Visualising Loss is an interdisciplinary pilot project led at the University of Leeds, bringing together performance, healthcare research, artists, charities, NHS professionals and women with lived experience of miscarriage. The project explores how performative ritual can help acknowledge loss, support wellbeing, and inform more compassionate NHS care.

The challenge 

Miscarriage is a common yet often invisible experience, with around 50% of pregnancies ending in miscarriage. Despite this prevalence, women who experience miscarriage (defined legally in the UK as the first 20–24 weeks) often receive limited emotional or psychological support, creating a gap in NHS care provision. The lack of visual, narrative and collective recognition can intensify distress for individuals and families. 

The Creative Health approach 

This project uses performative ritual as a creative health method, defined as ‘collective memories encoded into actions’. Through artist workshops and interviews, ritual-based performance practices were explored as ways to visualise loss, narrate experience, and create shared spaces of acknowledgement. Creative practice is positioned not as therapy alone, but as a research and dialogue tool connecting lived experience, healthcare professionals and policy contexts. 

Collaboration and partnerships 

The project brought together researchers from performance and healthcare studies, alongside artists, NHS healthcare professionals, and third-sector organisations. Women with lived experience were recruited through partner organisations to ensure the work was grounded in real needs and narratives. 

Impact and outcomes 

  • Generated qualitative data through artist workshops and interviews 
  • Created a platform for artists using ritual to share narratives of miscarriage 
  • Informed discussion with healthcare stakeholders on improving NHS provision 
  • Data is being developed into a co-authored academic article and a larger interdisciplinary funding bid 

People and affiliations 

Lead academic:  Dr Jacki Willson School of Performance and Cultural Industries, Faculty of Arts Cultures and Humanities  

Co-Lead: Professor Linda McGowan, School of Healthcare, Faculty of Medicine and Health 

Collaborators:
The Miscarriage Association
HOPE Bereavement Support
NHS healthcare professionals