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Chrissy Teigen shared an emotional story about her unborn son Jack, whom she lost back in September 2020, following a difficult miscarriage. The 35-year-old model revealed that she carries her late son’s ashes alongside her when she and her husband, John Legend, take trips with their family- a coping mechanism she has created to help her two children Luna and Miles process the loss of their younger sibling.
“[When] we go on a vacation or something, they always say, ‘Don’t forget baby Jack.’ And then I have to pack him up,” Teigen said during an interview with the Scary Mommy blog.
She continued, “And then when we get to where we’re going, they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, he must be thirsty.’ This might sound crazy to people, but they’ll put a little glass of water next to his little box of ashes. And they really love being a part of it.”
Teigen, who just recently debuted her new cookbook Cravings: All Together: Recipes to Love, revealed that she had a placenta abruption during her complicated pregnancy that caused her to lose a significant amount of blood. The former E-News correspondent said while it was difficult to tell her children about her tumultuous delivery, her kiddos understood almost instantly after she brought baby Jack’s ashes home.
“We told them that we lost him, but it wasn’t really until we got his ashes back, I think, that they started to be able to say, “OK, this happened. Here he is now. He didn’t make it,” she added. “It was something for them to be able to put a story to, where we could say, “OK, Jack is in here and he is going to stay with us. And maybe one day we might release him. And he loves that we still think about him, and he loves that we’re still emotional about him, but more than anything, he loves that we talk about him. That makes him really excited and really happy.” So they know that he’s still very much a part of our lives.”
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A study published by The Lancet in April of this year shared some startling statistics about miscarriages among Black women. The report suggested that Black women have a 43 percent higher risk of having a miscarriage compared to white women. Researchers discovered the shocking data after analyzing nearly 4.6 million pregnancies in seven countries. Siobhan Quenby, a professor of Obstetrics at the University of Warwick and co-author of the study, said it’s difficult to pinpoint why Black women, in particular, are more at risk.
“It’s something that hasn’t been highlighted before and something that we need to understand more about,” Quenby told CBSN. “All we can suggest is perhaps they have more of these risk factors,” Quenby added. “We also think that maybe there are some social factors in certain societies.”
Risk factors for miscarriages can include increased age, body-mass index, alcohol consumption, smoking, being exposed to pollution and pesticides and undergoing persistent stress.
Quenby said that lifestyle changes could help decrease the issue, noting that about 30 percent of people referred to her clinic either had complications from diabetes, high blood pressure and weight gain– three health conditions that continue to plague the Black community at disproportionate rates.
“There are things we can do to prevent miscarriage. It’s not a condition that’s hopeless,” Quenby added citing that Black women should seek the best pre-conception care before delivery. This means undergoing regular scans and pelvic ultrasounds to check for any irregularities in the womb among other forms of prenatal care. About 75 percent of those who miscarry will go on to have a healthy pregnancy, the BCC noted.
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