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Team Debriefing After Perinatal Loss: Why It Works and How to Do It
Every week, we deliver evidence-based strategies for modern perinatal bereavement care. Written by Jay CRNA, MS, specializing in obstetrical anesthesia, and Trina, a bereavement expert, both who have experienced loss.
Trina Parkin
October 02, 2025 • Read time: 8 minutes
In Today’s Issue:
📢 Announcement: Our next bereavement training event is coming up
🔗 The best resources I found this week
📖 Deep dive: Team Debriefing After Perinatal Loss: Why It Works and How to Do It
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Want to learn how to get Forget Me Not Boxes in your hospital? Reply “Bereavement boxes”
📢 Our Next Virtual Bereavement Training is Coming Soon…this time is for bereavement coordinators!
If you serve as a bereavement coordinator or lead bereavement efforts at your hospital, this event is for you!
When: 🗓 Wednesday, November 19th @ 11am-12:30 CST
Where: This event will be held virtually on Zoom and is completely free to attend
Hosted by: Forget Me Not, and Share Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support
Forget Me Not and Share Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support are partnering up for a special event with expert training, peer connection, and practical strategies designed specifically for bereavement coordinators.
Please help spread the word and forward this email to your bereavement coordinators: event.fmncorp.com
🔗 The Best Resources I Found This Week
📝 Free template for team debriefing after perinatal loss (Forget Me Not)
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🌟 Why Peer Debriefing Works
Turns out, talking with your team after a tough case really does help. Research says debriefings boost support and protect nurses from burnout.
(Source: Let's Make Staff Well-Being Debriefings Part of Health Care Culture)
🧡 Nurse Distress and How to Handle It
Debriefing after infant loss helps nurses process tough emotions—and it’s backed by evidence from real units.
(Source: The Effects of Debriefing on Nurse Distress after Perinatal Loss (PDF))
📖 Deep Dive
Team Debriefing After Perinatal Loss: Why It Works and How to Do It
After a miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death, L&D teams need space to process what happened. Not because anything went wrong. Because caring for families in their worst moments takes something out of you.
Evidence shows peer debriefing works. It reduces burnout, helps staff cope better, and creates stronger teams.
The fast pace of our work often leads us to compartmentalize, putting our feelings aside to manage later. Yet often, there is no time for “later”.
What We Know About Debriefing
Here’s a quote from this great article I found that puts it well – “Well-being debriefings are small, informal peer-facilitated meetings, which provide an opportunity for clinicians to exchange thoughts and feelings about work issues naturally affecting their emotional health.”
Research shows that structured debriefing helps healthcare workers express emotions after difficult situations, making them "feel better about the situation". Nurses cope better with traumatic birth events through team support, communication, and debriefing.
Read more here on the research here: A systematic scoping review on the evidence behind debriefing practices for the wellbeing/emotional outcomes of healthcare workers
One L&D nurse said it perfectly:
"It’s good to have a quick debrief before home...this helps me not carry it home with me if I had a bad day".
The evidence is clear. Debriefing gives healthcare workers voice through discussing difficult events. When done right, it reduces the emotional toll of the work and creates a supportive culture.
"Honestly, most of us have to find support ourselves—usually colleagues we trust, or sometimes a therapist or a partner. I wish more hospitals had real support or debriefing. It would make a huge difference."
The problem? It rarely happens consistently. Most units have sporadic debriefing at best, and it doesn't include emotional support.
How Debriefing Helps Labor and Delivery Teams
After exposure to traumatic birth events, maternity healthcare workers face high levels of secondary traumatic stress. This leads to burnout, job dissatisfaction, and staff leaving.
Debriefings are low-cost and easy to set up. The cost? Some time and honest talk. The payoff? Staff stick around, feel seen, and stay more connected to their team and the work they’re doing.
Peer debriefing breaks this cycle. It helps staff:
Express feelings in a safe space with colleagues who understand
Feel less isolated and more supported
Process emotions before they build up
Share coping strategies with each other
Even taking 15 minutes on a 1:1 or a group debrief can have a positive impact is reducing compassion fatigue. It helps teams self-correct and enhances performance.
What to Cover and When to Have it?
You should review what went well, and offer space to talk about the challenges or distress that arose during care. It's important to give everyone a chance to share their thoughts or feelings, recognize supportive teamwork, and provide information about available resources for further support—whether that's peer conversations or referrals for counseling.
Should include:
Safe space for honest sharing
Peer facilitation (not therapy)
Focus on emotional support, not just clinical review
Connection to additional resources when needed
Ideally, a debrief happens as soon as possible, either immediately after the event, at the end of the shift, or within 24–48 hours for maximum benefit. Most evidence recommends keeping it brief—10 to 30 minutes is enough—so staff step away for a quick check-in without it turning into a long meeting.
Most importantly: making it happen consistently, not perfectly.
Just giving people a chance to say, “I’m not okay,” and hear, “Me neither, and that’s normal,” can shift the whole mood. This isn’t complicated—it’s just caring for caregivers, so they can keep caring for everyone else.
Save this template to kick off your next debriefing:
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👋 That’s a Wrap!
Before you go: Here are ways we can help your hospital
We offer bereavement boxes to give as gifts to those who leave the hospital after a miscarriage, stillborn, or infant death. Reply to this email “Sample” to get a free sample sent to your hospital.
What we prioritize:
Tools for hospitals to create a bereavement experience for families to begin their grief journey
Educating nurses with modern bereavement standards and continuing education.
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
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