In today’s issue

📖 Deep dive: Stats on post-follow up care
🔗 The best links I found this week
🩷 Self-care moment: Benefits of mindfulness

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📖 Deep Dive

The data supporting post-follow-up care and what you can change now

Imagine going through the most devastating loss imaginable and then facing it largely alone. This is the reality for many women after stillbirth who lack adequate partner support - and the consequences are alarming.

A Silent Struggle

When Emma lost her baby at 28 weeks, her medical team was compassionate and thorough with physical care. But after discharge, the support system vanished. Her partner, unsure how to help and process his own grief, withdrew emotionally. "It felt like falling through ice into freezing water," she recalled. "Everyone expected me to eventually 'move on' but didn't see I was drowning."

Emma's experience isn't unique. Stillbirth affects 1 in 160 pregnancies in the United States, yet our healthcare system often fails to address the profound mental health aftermath. Women who experience this loss frequently fall through the cracks of standard postpartum care - they don't have regular pediatric visits that might catch depression signs, and many don't return for obstetric follow-ups where screening might occur.

This chart compares the likelihood of Depression/Anxiety After Stillbirth with and without partner support - source

Takeaways: Support Makes All the Difference

The Stillbirth Collaborative Research Network uncovered a stark reality: nearly half (49.8%) of women experience depression or anxiety following stillbirth. But here's where it gets critical - for women without adequate partner support, this number skyrockets to over 80%.

Let that sink in. The difference between having a supportive partner and facing grief alone more than doubles the risk of serious mental health problems. When someone to lean on isn't available, the psychological burden becomes almost unbearable.

Another fascinating research angle comes from studying mindfulness. Women who practiced mindfulness techniques showed fewer symptoms of post-traumatic stress, with better sleep quality playing a key role in this relationship. This suggests that simple, accessible practices might offer significant relief. I highly recommend this book, Rewire Your Mind: Discover the science and practice of mindfulness

5 Steps to Begin Implementing In Your After Care Procedure

As nurses on the frontlines of maternal care, you have a unique opportunity to bridge this gap. Here's how we can transform stillbirth aftercare:

📞 Create a Lifeline Protocol: Establish dedicated follow-up calls specifically for stillbirth families at 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months. Use these touchpoints to screen for depression and anxiety - but also to simply check in humanely. Sometimes, just knowing someone remembers matters profoundly. Bonus points if it’s someone the patient would be able to remember.

🤝 Partner Assessment & Support: During follow-ups, include questions about partner support. Is she getting emotional help at home? If not, connect her with additional resources immediately - don't wait for symptoms to worsen. Consider offering a joint session where partners can learn practical ways to support each other.

🧘 Sleep-Focused Mindfulness Tools: Research shows better sleep directly reduces trauma symptoms. These can be as basic as 5-minute recordings. Dr. Shauna Shapiro has a free sleep series recording with powerful impacts.

🌉 Build Flexible Connection Paths: Many women don't return for standard follow-ups after stillbirth - it's simply too painful to revisit the place associated with loss. Offer alternative connection points: home visits, video calls, or even text check-ins. The medium matters less than maintaining contact.

💗 Create "Permission to Grieve" Resources: Develop materials that validate the grief journey, explaining that there's no timeline for healing and that needing support isn't weakness. Include stories from others who've been through similar experiences to combat isolation.

The research is clear - we can dramatically reduce suffering with thoughtful, consistent support. Each woman who experiences stillbirth deserves care that acknowledges both her physical and emotional recovery. By implementing these evidence-based approaches, we create a safety net that catches those at risk of falling through our standard care systems.

When faced with one of life's most devastating experiences, no one should have to navigate the darkness alone. With these targeted interventions, we can be the light that guides women through their most difficult days - and potentially save lives in the process.

🔗 My Favorite Finds This Week

❤️‍🩹 Facebook group worth joining
Resource for for birth and mental health professionals who want to collaborate to prevent, heal and educate about all forms of perinatal trauma. (Birth & Trauma Support Professionals)

😴 Sleep
This is an excellent free guided sleep meditation resource to support good sleep habits. I’ve used it myself. (Dr. Shuana Shapiro, PHD)

🧘 Online Yoga for Patients
Article on how online yoga can reduce post-traumatic stress in women who have experienced stillbirth: a randomized control feasibility trial (BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies)

💞 Tele-mentoring resource
Mom's IMPACTT is a mental health and substance use disorder resource and referral program for people who are pregnant or within 12 months postpartum, and any health care provider caring for a pregnant or postpartum person. (MUSC health)

🩷 Self-care moment

The benefits of Mindfulness

Mindfulness practices can:

1. Increase self-awareness

2. Reduce implicit biases

3. Enhance compassion

4. Improve ethical decision-making

5. Activate brain regions associated with empathy (like the insula)

Mindfulness can increase our compassion for people who are different from us. The insula is the part of the brain that is responsible for compassion. It’s a physiological phenomenon to have more compassion for people who are similar to you. Mindfulness helps reduce bias and increases compassion for everyone and increases our ethical decision-making.

Source: Shauna Shapiro, PhD - Best-selling author, clinical psychologist and internationally recognized expert in mindfulness and self-compassion.