Katherine Ryan has said suffering a miscarriage this year made her feel “embarrassed and shameful”.
The Canadian stand-up and actress, 36, said she had been surprised by the lack of information that was available to women.
Ryan recently revealed, during an interview with Lorraine Kelly, that she had a miscarriage at 10 weeks in February.
Appearing on Love Island host Laura Whitmore’s CASTaway podcast, she said: “I know it can be a very lonely experience, and it’s shrouded in all this embarrassment.
“I felt embarrassed and shameful, not that I had the loss, but I felt embarrassed for getting excited before the loss.
“I felt all these things, and I looked for stories and I really couldn’t find many of them.
“I think it needs to be on the curriculum, I think girls need to know that you can have this secret silent miscarriage.
“I’m 36, I thought I was very well-versed on women’s issues. I genuinely didn’t know that a miscarriage can happen in this way.
“So I think, the more women who tell their stories about this and so many issues, and the intimacy of doing that through a podcast was important for me to share that, even if it helps one person.”
The star recently entered a civil partnership with her childhood sweetheart Bobby Kootstra, after rekindling their relationship following 20 years apart.
She has a daughter, Violet, from a previous relationship.
“I love Bobby more and more every day, I really do,” she said.
“And I was super anti-conformity, I hated the idea that for generations our ancestors, I do feel a connection to my female ancestors, especially, I feel this collective ancestral trauma that we weren’t legally people for a very long time.
“You were your father’s property and then you were your husband’s property, you weren’t allowed to open a bank account, you weren’t allowed to have a job, you weren’t allowed to carry a passport, you weren’t allowed to buy a house.
“And I felt like I’m the first woman in my family who’s done all those things alone, and that’s why I really rejected the idea that you should get married.
“However, if you choose to get married, that’s fine. Luckily I did. I really love him and luckily it’s going great, I don’t know how I dated so many waste men before.”
Laura Whitmore’s CASTaway podcast is available on all major podcast platforms.