About the Miscarriage Association

The Miscarriage Association of Ireland is a charitable and completely voluntary body set up with the support of women and men who themselves have been through miscarriages.

The Association was founded in September 1988 by Hilary Frazer from the southside of Dublin. Hilary left hospital with "nothing" following a miscarriage and she found this so traumatic and heartbreaking that she placed an advertisement in the paper. Stephanie Blandford from the northside of Dublin answered the ad and this was the beginning of the Miscarriage Association of Ireland. Meetings were held in Hilary's sitting room. She set up a telephone support helpline and managed this herself.

Now The Miscarriage Association of Ireland holds monthly support meetings in Buswells Hotel, Molesworth Street, Dublin on the first Thursday of every month (excluding July & August) . The telephone support line is operated by a team of volunteers.

In 1998 The Book of Remembrance was officially launched by Frances Fitzgerald TD in the College of Surgeons. This is an unofficial register for babies lost through Miscarriage. It is a beautiful, leather-bound Book and holds special memories of our precious little babies who only  got the opportunity to  share our lives for a short time. "Their time was short, yet very precious".

In 1999, The Miscarriage Association of Ireland placed a Memorial Stone in Glasnevin Cemetery, in Dublin. This gives all those people, who never got an opportunity to bury their babies, a place to go on those special dates, anniversaries, due dates, etc.

In November 1999, The Miscarriage Association of Ireland held its very own Service of Remembrance in St. Theresa's Church, Donore Avenue, South Circular Road, Dublin, and this Service of Remembrance continues to be held every year in November. Prior to this, the Service was held with ISANDS (The Irish Stillbirth and Neonatal Death  Society) - now known as a Little Lifetime Foundation. ISANDS now hold their own Service every year in December.

In 2000, The Miscarriage Association of Ireland placed two granite benches near the Memorial Stone in Glasnevin Cemetery, to allow those visiting a place to rest with their thoughts.

In September 2006, The Miscarriage Association of Ireland was proud to launch this website.

We produce newsletters during the year and distribute them to our members. (Some of these newsletters are available online now).

All information you provide us with is treated in the strictest of confidence and we are more than happy to be able to help any person who contacts us, whether by telephone, letter or email. We are always open to suggestions as to how we could better our services and further our aims.

We strive to achieve our goals and aim to ...

  • Increase awareness to the general public that all pregnancy loss is a bereavement and that the length of the pregnancy is not related to the depth of grief and sense of loss experienced.
  • Provide support, help and information for women, couples and their families who have had, or are having a miscarriage and feel the need for help.
  • Make available such information about miscarriage, its effects and other allied information that is not already or easily available.
  • Provide a National Information Centre on all aspects of miscarriage. This includes the time afterwards when support and information are essential and very much needed.
  • Dispel the myths about miscarriage, and to open the whole area. Ignorance is not bliss when it causes fear and anxiety to the person(s) involved.
  • Seek to effect change, with the support of the medical professions, where such changes have rendered themselves not only essential, but vital. Whilst we are only too aware of how over-worked doctors and other medical staff are, we nonetheless seek their individual support, help and advice.
  • Try to fill the many gaps that lie within the present system that deals with the woman who has miscarried.
  • Set up local groups throughout the country in order to bring about contact between those women and men who might otherwise suffer needlessly, and perhaps worsening any possible long term effects.
  • Encourage those effected by miscarriage to openly and freely express their feelings, to allow themselves to cry and to grieve without fear of being told they are being selfish, or to 'shake themselves out of it'.
  • Give others the benefit of our own experiences and knowledge, and to be to other women and men what we ourselves would have wanted had such a service been available at the time.
  • Learn more so that others may suffer less.
  • Compile, print and distribute leaflets, posters and pamphlets that could be left in clinics, waiting room, ward-rooms, perhaps even handed to a patient by a medical practitioner: This way the couple are aware that help, support and information is available, if or when they need it.
  • Become affiliated to as many relevant groups and associations in order that we may work together to provide an efficient a service as possible and to combine information.