Reproductive Grief and Perinatal Loss
Compassionate, trauma-informed care.
Welcome
After years of providing psychotherapy to individuals and couples navigating challenges and loss in their reproductive lives, it became clear to me this unique suffering is often compounded by the societal avoidance, discomfort and misunderstandings surrounding reproductive grief. This was apparent to me as a clinician, but also as someone who has walked through experiences of loss.
The Missing Trimester was born out of my desire to see organizations, healthcare providers, and mental health clinicians develop compassionate, trauma-informed approaches to support grieving people so that the compounding effects of disenfranchised grief can be reduced, and hopefully, one day eliminated.
Grief is hard enough. Now is the time to provide what has been missing: education, support, and connection for those grieving, and for those providing care. The Missing Trimester asserts that perinatal loss and reproductive grief deserve their own safe place in the world to be researched, understood and supported. Here it is.
Foundational Elements
Community Education
Grief happens to individuals, but requires attuned and informed community to be fully integrated. Grief cannot be metabolized in isolation.
Provider Support
It is essential to tend to the reality of stress and burnout in care providers in order to work towards more successful patient-provider experiences.
Person-Centered Care
Attachment theory, psychobiology and trauma-informed interventions come together to address risk factors and symptoms of prolonged grief.