Dr. Lisa Hanasono is an associate professor of communications at BGSU. In this episode, she shares her research on “Shattering the Silence on Miscarriage and Pregnancy Loss,” which she worked on in Fall 2018 while an ICS Faculty Fellow. In this episode, she discusses her research on how culture, gender, media, and interpersonal communication factors work in concert to stigmatize and silence discussions about pregnancy loss—and what we can do collectively to end the stigma and support families.

Transcript:

Jolie Sheffer:                          Welcome to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I am Jolie Sheffer, an Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies and the Director of ICS.

Jolie Sheffer:                          This is the first of two episodes featuring fall 2018 ICS Faculty Fellows. ICS is proud to sponsor fellowships to promote the research and creating work of faculty here at BGSU. Those who receive awards are freed from one semester of teaching and service to devote unimpeded time to the interdisciplinary projects they've proposed. These projects must be of both intellectual significance and social relevance. ICS faculty fellows present their work in a public forum and engage with community partners, demonstrating BGSU's identity as a public university working for the public good.

Jolie Sheffer:                          Today we're joined by Dr. Lisa Hanasono, an Associate Professor of Communication. Dr. Hanasono's research focuses on how supportive communication, institutional change and community advocacy can address issues related to discrimination, stigma, and resilience. Some of the topics she explores include gender bias and tenure track faculty service obligations and how online forums play a role in individuals coping with racial discrimination. Dr. Hanasono is here to discuss her research, analyzing communication around pregnancy loss and miscarriage. She spent months interviewing dozens of women who had experienced pregnancy loss and pored over popular pregnancy literature like the classic text, What to Expect When You're Expecting. In the process, she discovered deep stigmas around miscarriage, which cause people to shy away from conversations and treat the topic as taboo.

Jolie Sheffer:                          Thanks so much for joining me.

Dr. Hanasono:                      Thank you so much for having me.

Jolie Sheffer:                          Why don't you start off by telling us a little more about what you're working on right now this semester.

Dr. Hanasono:                      This semester, I am so fortunate to be at ICS Fellow, which is afforded me an amazing amount of space and time to be able to dive deeply into understanding cultural, institutional, interpersonal and personal factors that are all combining to perpetuate the silence and stigma surrounding miscarriage and pregnancy loss. But it's also given me the opportunity to look at some potential solutions, so to investigate what we can do both on an individual but also on an institutional cultural level to try to shift things so that we can break that silence and that we can shatter that stigma surrounding pregnancy loss.

Jolie Sheffer:                          How did you become interested in this really important topic?

Dr. Hanasono:                      So for so many years I've been studying discrimination, coping and social support, and much of my work has been focused on issues related to race, culture, gender, age, and ability and their intersections. It wasn't until 2015 when I experienced my own pregnancy loss that I had this aha moment. So I was pregnant in 2015 and had experienced something called a missed miscarriage, which up until that time I had never even knew was