Emily Atack reveals she thought she’d lost her baby after suffering a hemorrhage during pregnancy as she hits out at the ‘casual and flippant’ narrative around miscarriage

Emily Atack has revealed she thought her ‘worst fear’ had come true when she suffered a suspected miscarriage.

The actress, 34, welcomed her first child with scientist Alistair Garner, a baby boy named Barney, in June.

Still, she became afraid during pregnancy, which revealed that she had lost blood and it was later determined that she had had a hemorrhage.

I talk to Jamie Laing about his Great company podcast, Emily shared: ‘I saw blood in the toilet and thought, oh my god, I’m having a miscarriage. It just came out of me and I thought that was it. My biggest fear came true: I’m going to have a miscarriage.’

Fortunately, Emily’s sister was with her at the time and rushed her to seek medical attention.

‘I had a scan and he [the doctor] said the baby is fine, you had a bleed, a hematoma, but the baby is fine,” Emily shared. ‘

‘I couldn’t believe it, I thought it was impossible – I thought it was all over and I thought if I had to tell everyone you feel like you’re letting them all down, it’s really terrible .

‘I don’t want to upset anyone who has experienced a baby loss or miscarriage, but it is the most horrific thing that has ever happened.

“And a lot of that pain comes from feeling like you have to let everyone down, because you told them you’re going to have a baby and it’s going to be great, and then you have to… that goes away. The pressure is ridiculous.’

She then responded to the general backlash, explaining, “The word miscarriage is so dismissed as something casual.

“It’s kind of like, ‘I know a girl who had a miscarriage…’ because it’s technically considered common.” But what’s so terrible, it really makes me angry, even when doctors say it in the first days of your pregnancy, they talk about miscarriage as if it were so common.

“That it’s so light-hearted and so disposable. But for that person who just lost their baby, this is the most devastating thing imaginable. You have lost your child.

“But for some reason there’s a very informal story, like it’s so common that it’s something you have to go through every now and then. I can’t even imagine the pain and just like women, it’s something we have to go through.

‘The same applies to a caesarean section or complications during childbirth.’

Emily previously opened up about her birth experience, saying: ‘It was a very difficult labor and after 12 hours of labor I ended up having a caesarean section, but he was so calm.’

Elsewhere in the podcast, Emily opens up about her ‘awkward’ sexual experiences, reflecting on drunken encounters she considers rape.

The Inbetweeners star weighed in on the topic of consent when she revealed she is leading a campaign for ‘affirmative consent’, which aims to change the law so that ‘the two parties involved in the sexual act must confirm that they want to continue. along’.

She explained that she had been thinking about past encounters that she now views in a different light because women are conditioned to “suppress” their feelings about sex and believe that having sex while too drunk to consent is ‘normal’.

Emily shared, “My situations were just awkward – yes, literally. To be honest, I can probably only count on one hand where I’ve actually enjoyed sex.

“Growing up, I’m sorry, as a teenager it was terrible. There were no barriers, there were no boundaries. Boys didn’t know how to deal with girls, girls didn’t know how to deal with such situations. It was a mess.’

Emily continued, “I went through life thinking that if you wake up after a night out and something has happened but you don’t really remember it, you just have to suck it up and get on with it.

“It’s like no one will do that… it’s just not worth going down that route of ‘but I can’t remember, I can’t remember any of that.’

‘Yes, terrible, I’ve woken up so many times and thought: ‘I definitely didn’t say yes to that’.’

The actress, who stars in the new Disney+ adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s Rivals, added that men can ‘get away’ with sex with drunk women.

When asked if any of her sexual experiences made her feel ashamed, upset or angry, she said: ‘Yes, that’s true, but it’s been so repressed for so long, we’ve been taught for so long that that was somewhat normal. way to have sex – that you wake up after a party and say, “Ooh, Jesus Christ, I don’t actually remember that.” And then you just kind of move on.

‘We were taught that that was normal.

‘The problem now is, as we all talk more, people are coming out and saying, “Oh yeah, I was raped then.” And it’s very hard to have to admit it to you.

‘But also the reason why it’s hard for the men is that men get angry because they’re scared, because so many men listen to this stuff and say, ‘I’ve done that before.’

‘There’ll be men getting their kids’ uniforms ready for school and they’ll listen to something like that and stop and say, “Oh f**k, I’ve done that before.”

“And they probably regret it and feel really terrible about it, but to now hear that that was wrong, and that that is now actually considered rape, that’s hard for people to swallow because they know that somewhere have done in their lives. A lot of people live there, a lot of people.

“That’s why it’s so hard to go there.”

Emily has led a CPB London campaign calling for a change to the laws on rape and sexual assault

The petition, which reached 10,000 signatures in five days, reads: ‘Current rape and sexual assault laws allow ‘implied consent’ and take into account the perpetrator’s ‘reasonable beliefs’.

“An affirmative consent model addresses these points by requiring explicit agreement at every stage of the interaction, thereby preventing misunderstandings. The Sexual Offenses Act has existed for twenty years.

“We believe that the consent model needs to be re-evaluated in light of international changes and to better protect survivors in court, shifting the focus from the absence of ‘no’ to the presence of ‘yes.’

Commenting on men sending lewd messages to women, Emily said: ‘I didn’t ask for them, I don’t want them – but that doesn’t matter.

‘That’s actually the point. It got me thinking: consent, or lack thereof, is at the heart of so much sexual harassment and violence that women and girls face, yet current law still fails to protect those who don’t outright saying ‘no’. It’s time to make things simple – only a Yes should mean Yes.

‘That simple message would certainly contribute to more open and clearer communication.’

The actress previously investigated the alarming rise in online sexual harassment for new BBC2 documentary Emily Atack: Asking For It after experiencing repeated daily abuse on her Instagram and TikTok accounts.

If you have been affected by this story, please get advice at www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk or by calling 01924 200 799.

Anyone aged 16 and over in England and Wales who has been affected by rape, child sexual abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment or any other form of sexual violence can Contact Rape Crisis.

Call 0808 500 2222 or visit their Support Line website to start an online chat.