-flameohotman-

Thanks for taking the time to do an AMA!

It seems like a lot of people are dismissive of how emotionally devastating pregnancy loss can be, and expect people to simply "get over it." How do we shift societal understanding about this and educate people on the depth of the impact that pregnancy loss can have?

Secondarily, can you list some resources available to support those affected by pregnancy loss?

donating contaminated blood

what

You state that tens of thousands of people get the cops called on them by 988, but Lifeline's/988's website states that they received about 2.4 million calls in 2020. (See https://988lifeline.org/by-the-numbers/) If we're generous and interpret your number as 50,000 people who get the cops called on them, this is roughly only 2% of callers. It sounds like a big number, but practically speaking, it's proportionally quite small.

I am not in favor of involving law enforcement in crisis calls. It's traumatic, the person often ends up with an arrest on their record, and involving the police there's always at least a small risk of injury or perhaps even death. However, there are almost certainly instances where the caller is an immediate danger to themselves or others and the situation can't be deescalated over the phone. My question here is: Of these tens of thousands that you mention, for what proportion is it actually appropriate for law enforcement to get involved? Yes, there will invariably be peers who are bad at their job and call in police unnecessarily, but that's unavoidable given 988's policies. Broadly speaking, 2% seems like a reasonable figure. (ETA: I don't mean to sound combative--my question is in the context of how 988 operates. IMO police should not be involved in handling mental health crisis situations.)

For people in crisis who are concerned about this, are there any other suicide prevention hotlines, warm lines, etc., that never involve law enforcement, no matter what the circumstances?