The conventional guideline for sharing the news of a pregnancy is that you should wait until the ceremonial 12 or 13-week mark, the endpoint of the most anxiety-ridden first trimester when most pregnancy losses are diagnosed. What the rule is really saying is: Don't get too excited. But what if you do have a miscarriage? You're left alone to navigate your tragedy, one that you did nothing to cause, one that so many others have experienced, too.

Close to 30 per cent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, by one estimate. And yet so many mums and dads still suffer in silence. How do you support a friend or family member who has lost a baby? October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and in a powerful Reddit thread, people shared what you can really do to help.

The high of learning your wife is pregnant, especially for the first time, could never reach the depths of the despair that tears you apart when you learn she will miscarry. But that is just the beginning.