Lily Allen’s Miscarriage: Why Pregnant Stars Choose to Wait

I’ve never been particularly interested in celebrity pregnancies and baby bumps. When the tabloids spend weeks speculating about whether so and so is pregnant, I’ve always wondered why they bother, why people care, and why obviously expectant stars insist on being so cagey about sharing their news. Do they just want the extra publicity that postponing an announcement brings?

But after reading yesterday that British singer Lily Allen miscarried a baby that was due in January, I see things completely differently — at least regarding the sharing the news part. I can’t imagine the pain that Allen, who announced that she was three months pregnant in August and had already suffered a miscarriage in 2008, must be going through. Having to privately mourn the loss of a child six months into your pregnancy must be hard enough without having it be public knowledge and seeing it in headlines everywhere you look.

No wonder stars are waiting past their first trimester to make their baby announcements. Penelope Cruz was four and a half months pregnant when she confirmed in September that she and husband Javier Bardem are expecting their first child. Alicia Keys, who gave birth to a boy named Egypt on October 15, was well into the showing stage when she finally announced in May that she was having a baby with producer Swizz Beatz (birth name: Kasseem Dean), whom she has since married.

Though it’s generally accepted that after the first trimester, it’s safe to start spreading the good news, miscarriages are more common than most people probably realize. According to the American Pregnancy Association, 10 to 25 per cent of all clinically recognized pregnancies will end in miscarriage. (When unrecognized pregnancies are factored in, that number rises to 40 per cent.) The chance of a miscarriage drops to 1 to 5 per cent during the second trimester (the 13th to 28th week), but the slim odds that something could go wrong might be why pregnant stars are waiting longer to tell.

Mariah Carey recently ended weeks of speculation by announcing that she and husband Nick Cannon are expecting their first child. She also revealed that she suffered a miscarriage two years ago. Considering the high odds of a first-trimester miscarriage, there are probably many other stars who have had the same experience without ever talking about it publicly.

While I understand why any woman would want to keep something like that private, I applaud Carey for coming forward. Pregnancy can be both a source of great joy and a source of great pain (physically and emotionally). For women who have to cope with the lonely, empty aftermath of miscarrying, it’s must be some comfort to know that they aren’t alone.