Exploring mental health support needs for NHS staff caring for parents experiencing pregnancy loss

Pregnancy loss, including miscarriage, stillbirth and death of a newborn baby, affects 1 in 4 pregnancies in the UK. While this is hugely traumatic for parents, it can also impact the mental health of the healthcare professionals who care for them.

While the impact of pregnancy loss on parents is well-researched, the impact on healthcare professionals and the support available to them is less explored.

Project aims
We want to improve the support for NHS staff in these situations.

We want to understand what makes it hard for staff to take care of parents experiencing pregnancy loss. We also want to check if the support staff get is good enough and find out what other kinds of support they need.

We’ll do this by:

Reviewing the existing research on the type and effectiveness of support for NHS staff caring for parents experiencing pregnancy loss
Interview staff to understand their experiences of caring for parents experiencing pregnancy loss, use of available support systems and whether other kinds of support are needed
What we hope to achieve
By identifying the specific support needs of NHS staff, we are laying the groundwork for developing evidence-based support resources.

The resources will be designed to improve the wellbeing of NHS staff caring for parents experiencing pregnancy loss. This in turn should improve the quality of care provided to parents and their families.