BBC Radio 4 2016-03-09

BBC Radio 4 2016-03-09

Good morning.

Researchers at the University of Warwick have identified a likely cause of multiple miscarriages. Women who have recurrent miscarriages – meaning here the loss of three or more consecutive pregnancies – may have a reduced number of stem cells in the lining of their wombs. And with the identification of a cause comes a direction and the impetus for further research, to address this defect and so it is to be hoped, one day to prevent the pain of the one in a hundred women who suffer in this way.

I find it poignant that news of this promising breakthrough was announced just two days after mothering Sunday. Some mothers’ day services I have attended have a moment which I have always found acutely troubling – it is when mothers are invited to come forwards to receive a bunch of flowers, often distributed by children. It can be a touching scene – but whenever I have witnessed it, call me gloomy if you like, I am left wondering about women sitting in the congregation who have no living children, but who know they have lost children to miscarriage. Technological advances which we take for granted - such as pregnancy detection kits and ultrasound scans - have given women earlier knowledge of and encouragement to bond with, their hoped for child, knowledge and encouragement which was not available even 50 years ago. But the downside of that is just that in making the hoped for child seem that much more real, these technologies have increased the pain of those whose hopes are raised only to be disappointed, and disappointed again and again.

If those church services are meant to declare, as they are, that it is a good thing to be a mother – then it is also a good thing to want to be a mother – and the church should recognise and honour that desire and hope. And those women in the congregation who have no living children should step forwards and take the small bouquet, however painful those few steps may be.

There is, however, a further point – which also needs making on Mothering Sunday, and on other occasions too I think. I can get at it by saying, as the great Augustine used to say, that Joseph was truly the father of Jesus, not on account of biology, but in virtue of the love and care he showed for his son. Which is to say, of course, that fatherhood and motherhood is not first of all, or most importantly, a physical relationship. Fatherhood and motherhood is not a bodily achievement, but an achievement of the heart. So, just as there are those in the congregation who are mothers, though they have only experienced miscarriages, so there will be those who have had no pregnancies and yet have mothered many in love and care, it might be through adoption or fostering, but in countless other less obvious ways too. They too are truly mothers, and they should get flowers as well.