In Today’s Issue:

🔗 The best resources I found this week
📖 Deep dive: Nurses coping with fetal demise, days, weeks, and months later

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Want to learn how to get Forget Me Not Boxes in your hospital? Reply “Bereavement boxes”

🔗 The Best Resources I Found This Week

🧠 When nurses carry the trauma
Quick read on how often L&D and maternity staff meet criteria for secondary traumatic stress after severe events like stillbirth and hemorrhage. It’s oddly comforting to see your “post‑demise fog” show up in the data.

🧯 Free therapy for healthcare workers
The Emotional PPE Project connects healthcare workers to licensed therapists for no‑cost, confidential sessions—no insurance, no employer involvement. Screenshot this one for the group chat.

📦 Late loss bereavement box (with training)
Forget Me Not’s late loss box gives families keepsakes and gives you a quick QR‑code training to watch before walking into the room.

🕯️ Six ideas for a softer stillborn room
Simple, evidence‑informed tweaks to make the room feel less clinical for families and for you. Think lighting, textiles, and cues that this space is different from a routine delivery.​

📖 Deep Dive

Evidence-Based Ways Nurses Can Cope After a Fetal Demise

Let’s talk about what we know from the research, and what you can actually do for yourself right after, a week later, a month later, and over the long haul.

What’s going on to nurses when this happens?

Studies of labor, postpartum, and NICU nurses show:

Many describe a grieving process similar to parents—sadness, guilt, helplessness—but feel they must hide it to “stay professional.”

👉 Read more on this from PubMed, Experiences of Nurses Who Care for Women After Fetal Loss

One study of L&D nurses found that about one-third had moderate to severe secondary traumatic stress after difficult births and losses.[sciencedirect]​

Secondary traumatic stress in maternity care is linked with sleep problems, intrusive memories, emotional numbing, and thoughts of leaving the specialty.

Dr. Marianne Hutti’s work shows that infant loss affects nurses across multiple areas—L&D, ED, OR, PACU—and can lead to compassion fatigue and unhealthy coping when there’s no support in place. Your reaction is not a personal flaw; it’s a predictable human response to repeated exposure to death in a setting that was “supposed” to be joyful.

On top of that, research by Hutti and others shows that nurses often grieve in ways that look very similar to parents’ grief—but they rarely have space to express it.

Right after: the first 24–72 hours

In the first couple of days, your nervous system is still stuck in “go mode.”

What helps, according to the evidence:

Debriefing, even if it’s brief
A DNP project on debriefing after perinatal loss showed that nurses who participated in a structured debrief reported lower distress and higher perceived support, compared with those who didn’t. 
This doesn’t have to be fancy. Five minutes at the nurses’ station: What went well, what was hard, what do we wish had been different, how is everyone doing?

We wrote a deep dive on debriefing here to read more.

If you’re the one in charge of making sure debriefs are happening, we created a free spreadsheet modeled after what St. Luke’s hospital is doing to track the nurses.

Download for free

Talking with someone who was there
Qualitative studies consistently show that the most meaningful support after fetal or infant death comes from peers who were involved in the case.

Even a short conversation—“That was rough. I keep thinking about…”—reduces the sense of isolation that fuels secondary trauma.

Basic physical care
Research on stress in healthcare workers emphasizes sleep, nutrition, and movement as foundational. Poor sleep and reliance on alcohol are both associated with higher secondary traumatic stress scores.

👉 Read more on this here, Current Status and Influencing Factors of Secondary Traumatic Stress in Emergency and Intensive Care nurses:A Cross-Sectional Analysis [PubMed]

After a demise shift, think of it as a mini-discharge plan for you: eat something, hydrate, shower, and prioritize sleep before anything else.

You don’t need to “process everything” before you clock out. Your job in this window is to not carry it alone and to give your body enough care that it can start to come down from the adrenaline spike.

A week later: when it’s still sitting with you

For many nurses, the deepest emotional impact hits days later.

Research in maternity providers shows that distress, intrusive memories, and avoidance behaviors often peak in the first two weeks after severe perinatal events. Nurses in Hutti’s work talk about remembering each loss vividly, sometimes years later. 

Evidence-informed things you can do around the one‑week mark:

• Use peer support on purpose
  A review of peer programs for healthcare workers found significant reductions in compassion fatigue and burnout when clinicians had structured or informal peer support.
  That might be a coworker you debrief with on your break, a unit-based support group, or an external program like PeerRxMed.

• Writing
  Research has showing that a different side of your brain is activated when you’re writing. Expressive writing—10–20 minutes a day for a few days about a difficult event—has been shown to reduce stress and improve physical health markers over time.
  You can write what you saw, what you’re proud of, what you feel guilty about, and what you want to remember about this baby and family.

• Monitor “numbing” strategies
  Hutti’s research notes that some nurses turn to alcohol or overworking as coping mechanisms after infant loss.
  If you notice yourself needing to stay constantly busy, or relying on substances to get through nights off, that’s a signal your system needs more support, not more pressure.

If you’re still feeling like your brain is stuck on replay after that first week, that’s your sign to pull in more support—not your cue to toughen up.

A month later: when it hasn’t faded

By a month, your unit may have moved on. Your body might not have.

A 2024 paper on secondary traumatic stress in nurses highlighted ongoing symptoms—intrusive images, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization—that lasted months in staff caring for repeated traumatic cases. Studies in maternity care providers show similar long tails after severe perinatal events.onlinelibrary.wiley+3

Ways to support yourself on this longer timeline:

• Create a small ritual around losses
  A study in hospice and palliative nursing found that nurses who developed personal rituals for patient deaths (lighting a candle, a moment of silence, journaling) reported lower compassion fatigue than those who did not.
  This can be quiet and private—a cup of tea and five minutes of reflection after each demise shift, or writing the baby’s name in a notebook you keep at home.

• Set work boundaries where you can
  Research on secondary traumatic stress emphasizes workload management and limiting repeated traumatic assignments when possible as a protective factor.
  That might sound like, “I’ve had multiple losses this month; I can help, but I need a lighter assignment next shift,” or asking charge to alternate who takes demise cases when staffing allows.

• Know when to bring in professional help
  If, a month out, you’re still having nightmares, panic symptoms at work, significant avoidance, or feeling disconnected from your life, those are classic secondary traumatic stress signs.
  Programs like the Emotional PPE Project (free therapy for healthcare workers) or your hospital’s EAP can connect you with clinicians who understand healthcare trauma.

This isn’t “failing to cope.” It’s recognizing a level of impact that the research treats as very real and very treatable.

Long term: staying soft without burning out

Over years in L&D, many nurses describe “growing around the painful spots” rather than hardening over them.

The literature backs that up:

• Some nurses report deepened meaning and purpose from caring for families through stillbirth and infant death, when their grief is acknowledged and they have ways to process it.[infantjournal.co]​

• Parents consistently identify compassionate nursing care as one of the most important factors in how they remember their baby’s death.[pubmed]​

👉 More on this during our interview with Anna the nurse

The goal isn’t to stop feeling these losses. The goal is to build a life and a practice where you’re allowed to feel them, supported in carrying them, and resourced enough to keep showing up.

What piece of this would feel most realistic to turn into a simple unit handout—“After a Demise: For Staff”—the immediate shift steps, the one‑week check-in, or the longer-term signs it’s time to call in more support?

How did you enjoy today’s deep dive?

(Select one)

⭐️ It was extremely helpful and gave me new insight

👍 Helpful, mostly a good refresher

✅ I didn’t learn anything new, but it validated what I already do

😕 It missed the mark or I have feedback

👋 That’s a Wrap!

Before you go: Here are ways we can help your hospital

Education: Please share our newsletter with your co-workers. Our priority is empowering nurses with the tools to support patients with modern, evidence-based bereavement education.

Bereavement boxes: Our bereavement boxes were designed out of a need for a modern high quality solution for families suffering from miscarriage, stillborn, or infant death.

Reply to this email “Sample” to get a free sample sent to your hospital.

What we prioritize:

1. Tools for hospitals to create a bereavement experience for families to begin their grief journey

2. Educating nurses with modern bereavement standards and continuing education.

3. Helping hospitals build a foundation of trust and support, so bereaved families feel seen and cared for—now and in the years to come.

These boxes were born out of our own personal losses, including Jay’s (CEO) 15 years of experience working in labor and delivery as a CRNA and witnessing time and again how the hospital experience can profoundly shape a family’s grief journey, for better or for worse.

Until next week,

Trina and Jay
Co-founders of Forget Me Not