October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. The trauma of miscarriage and perinatal loss impacts all family members; mothers, fathers, partners, siblings, and the unborn baby. The pregnancy that follows becomes a complex journey that carries grief for a deceased baby alongside the struggle to attach to a new unborn sibling.
This educational series provides tools and tips for nurses, physicians, social workers, and other healthcare professionals to help prevent fetal loss and support parents who experience the loss of a baby.
This program is for providers but may be informative for bereaved parents and family members. For information about continuing education credits, please contact Sarah Muller-Robbins, MPH, RN, at srobbins@pmch.org.
Reflections of Grief: Parents Perspective after Perinatal Loss
Wed. October 6, 2021 – 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
A panel discussion featuring parent advocates and healthcare professionals focused perinatal grief and support.
Panelists:
Andrea Booker, RN is the Program Manager for the Partnership for Maternal and Child Health of Northern New Jersey’s (Partnership’s) Fetal Infant Mortality Review (FIMR). In this role, she manages multidisciplinary case review teams and guides fetal and infant death examination and analysis of maternal interviews, social service records, and medical records. She is a frequent presenter on the topic of perinatal grief and professional support.
Pamela and Paul Caine are activists and parent mentors in the perinatal bereavement space. Since 1996, Pamela has been promoting compassionate care for families who have experienced the loss of a child through pregnancy loss, still birth or newborn death by fundraising, advising, and serving as an organizer and mentor for Englewood Health and Hackensack University Medical Center. She is also a peer contact for the SIDS Center of NJ. Pamela and her husband Paul, are the founders of Griffin Cares, in honor of their son Griffin, which supports families that have experienced the loss of a child.
Stacey Dinburg is the vice president and cofounder of The 2 Degrees Foundation. As a stillbirth parent advocate, speaker, and instructional facilitator, Stacey works to raise stillbirth awareness through research and education. She is dedicated to improving how society views and deals with stillbirth.
Vu-An Foster is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and President of Life After 2 Losses, an organization with the mission to support, inform, and empower women and mothers through advocacy and education. She has her Bachelors of Science Degree in Public Health and is currently studying for her Master of Public Health Degree at Rutgers School of Public Health.
Bereavement Care after Perinatal Loss: The Role of the Postpartum Doula
Wed. October 13, 2021 – 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
This presentation by Chanel Porchia-Albert, Founder & CEO of Ancient Song Doula Services, Inc, provides knowledge gain related to care options for grief support after perinatal loss and intent to change practice by including information or tools presented into professional practice.
Chanel Porchia-Albert, community-based organization offers quality doula services to women of color and low-income families within a reproductive and birth justice framework. She is also a consultant with the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs and the Co-Director of JustBirth Space – COVID-19 Response, which provides comprehensive and person-centered virtual perinatal support during pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period. As an activist, doula, consultant, and speaker, Ms. Porchia-Albert has impacted healthcare and public policy related to birth outcomes and equity across the greater New York region, nationally, and internationally.
Supporting Parents During a Pregnancy that Follows a Loss
Wed. October 20, 2021 – 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
This presentation by Lindsey M. Henke, MSW, LICSW, focuses on the emotional complexity of a pregnancy that follows perinatal loss. Participants will gain knowledge and practical advice to better work with parents who may still be coping with grief.
Lindsay Henke is a clinical social worker and maternal mental health therapist in Minneapolis, MN. She provides individual and group psychotherapy in private practice setting in reproductive trauma, infertility, perinatal and infant loss, and the pregnancy that follows along with postpartum anxiety and depression mental health treatment. She is also the Founder and Executive Director of Pregnancy After Loss Support (PALS), which is dedicated to ensure that every mom and her partner who is experiencing pregnancy after loss is able to find support and connection among both peers and health care professionals.
Save Babies with Us: Talking to Expectant Parents about Fetal Movement
Wed. October 27, 2021 – 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Emily Price, Executive Director of Count the Kicks, teaches providers how to educate expectant parents about fetal monitoring in the third trimester in an effort to prevent fetal loss.
Emily Price oversees the national expansion of the evidence-based Count the Kicks public health campaign that educates and empowers expectant parents to track their babies’ movements in the third trimester of pregnancy. The proven stillbirth prevention campaign helped lower Iowa’s stillbirth rate by nearly 32 percent in the past decade, and within that, helped lower the stillbirth rate among African American women in Iowa by a promising 39% in the first five years. This major reduction happened while the rest of the country remained relatively stagnant. Price leads the vision of the campaign — with an overall goal of realizing a 32% stillbirth rate reduction in all 50 states, which would save 7,500 babies every year in the U.S. She left a career in television journalism to pursue her current role after a story she reported on saved the life of her son Hayden.
Price has two decades of public speaking experience, first as a television journalist, and most recently as the leader of Healthy Birth Day, Inc., the nonprofit organization that created the successful Count the Kicks public health campaign. Interviews with Ms. Price have been featured on Good Morning America, The Washington Post, USA Today, Inside Edition, and dozens more media outlets — reaching 350 million people across the globe.
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