Chrissy Teigen has revealed on Instagram that she suffered a miscarriage, following a hospitalization earlier this week for excessive bleeding due to a “weak placenta.”
“We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we’ve never felt before,” Teigen wrote in the caption next to a series of black and white images—which showed her in a hospital room and joined in two of the photos by husband John Legend. “We were never able to stop the bleeding and give our baby the fluids he needed, despite bags and bags of blood transfusions. It just wasn’t enough.”
Teigen and Legend announced their pregnancy in August. Not long after the announcement, health complications seemed to set in. In early September, Teigen said she was on bed rest for two weeks, under doctor’s orders. This turned into three weeks, after which she was hospitalized for excessive bleeding.
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On Monday, Teigen told her social media followers that she’d had two blood transfusions, although she didn’t say exactly why.
As well as sharing her family’s heartbreaking news, Teigen revealed her son’s name.
“We never decide on our babies’ names until the last possible moment after they’re born, just before we leave the hospital,” she wrote on Instagram. “But we, for some reason, had started to call this little guy in my belly Jack. So he will always be Jack to us. Jack worked so hard to be a part of our little family, and he will be, forever.”
She also thanked “everyone who has been sending us positive energy, thoughts and prayers” and expressed how grateful she and Legend are for their “wonderful babies Luna and Miles” and for all the amazing things they’ve been able to experience. “But everyday can’t be full of sunshine,” she added. “On this darkest of days, we will grieve, we will cry our eyes out. But we will hug and love each other harder and get through it.”
How common is miscarriage?
Miscarriage, also called early pregnancy loss, is when a baby dies in the womb before 20 weeks of pregnancy. According to the March of Dimes, for women who know they’re pregnant, about 10% to 15% end in miscarriage. It’s most common in the first trimester (before the 12th week of pregnancy). Miscarriage in the second trimester (between 13 and 19 weeks) occurs in 1% to 5% of pregnancies.
How might a “weak placenta” lead to miscarriage?
A “weak placenta” is a placenta that’s not firmly implanted into the uterus, G. Thomas Ruiz, MD, ob-gyn lead at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California, tells Health. “Under normal circumstances a placenta will implant into the uterine lining and endometrium, with a boundary between the two called Nitabuch’s layer,” he explains. “This is usually a firm interface which allows for the transfer of nutrients and oxygen from the mother to the fetus and for the elimination of CO2 and waste from the fetus to the mother.”
If the interface is weak, bleeding may occur, which can ultimately lead to premature separation of the placenta from the uterus—known as placental abruption. Whether the pregnancy continues depends on several factors, Dr. Ruiz says, including the size of the bleed and the location of the abruption. “Because the uterus gets 25% of the mother’s blood flow, even bleeding from the margin of the placenta can be very significant,” he explains. “As long as the blood doesn’t cause separation of the remaining placenta the baby will get what it needs to continue to grow in utero. I have delivered many babies where there is a 10% to 15% abruption.”
However, if the bleeding is severe and doesn’t stop, the mother is at risk for developing disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), which is when her blood will no longer clot.
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Teigen’s Instagram post received an outpouring of love from fans and friends alike, with many people praising her courage in sharing the tragedy. “In awe of your bravery and selflessness in sharing as you have, which is going to help so many women and families,” wrote Busy Phillips, while Melissa Fumero commented, “I am so astonished and in complete awe of your bravery. You just made so many women feel seen by sharing this intimate grief.”
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