Overview

When pregnancy ends in miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal loss, the pain isn’t just physical. The experience shapes lives, identities, relationships — it changes what “home” looks like, what “hope” sounds like.

For health professionals, the capacity to walk alongside parents through loss, with emotional intelligence and compassionate care, makes an immeasurable difference. 

1. Perinatal Loss — the different types of loss (miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal loss), and their unique impacts,

2. Grief Considerations — how grief presents differently for individuals; recognizing varied emotional, physical, relational responses,

3. Models of Loss and Grief — frameworks and theories that describe how people experience and work through loss, and

4. Support for Loss and Grief — practical, evidence-based strategies for caring for parents; communicating sensitively; enabling healing.

On successful completion, participants are awarded a micro-credential in Perinatal Loss and Grief and a digital badge, recognition that can be added to professional profiles, CVs, or LinkedIn.

Content advisory note

Material covered in this module may trigger difficult feelings. Feel free to take a moment for yourself, disengage from the content and utilise any self-care strategies.

Level of Learning

Intermediate. This activity is targeted to those with some previous learning on the topic.

Target audience

This activity is suitable for health professionals qualified practitioners in perinatal, primary, or mental health settings including psychologists, social workers, general practitioners, occupational therapists, nurses, midwives, and allied health practitioners.

APS CPD-Approved

This activity has been assessed against the APS Standards for CPD activities and approved for its education quality. Learn more about the APS CPD Approval process.

Related activities

• Professional certificate in perinatal mental health - Foundational microcredential 8 CPD hours
• Self-care 1 CPD hour (Free)
• Birth trauma (Intermediate) 2 CPD hours

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this activity, participants should be able to:

• identify the different types of perinatal loss (e.g., miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death, termination for medical reasons),
• describe their potential emotional, psychological, and relational impacts,
• describe the varied presentations of grief across the perinatal period, including individual, cultural, and gendered expressions of loss,
• compare key theoretical models of grief and loss and their relevance to perinatal contexts, and
• apply compassionate, trauma-informed strategies to support grieving families and outline approaches for maintaining professional wellbeing when working with perinatal loss.

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