Rainbow Clinic offers support for families during pregnancy after the loss of a baby

When parents suffer the heartbreak of baby loss it is important that they receive care and support not only over this very difficult time, but also during future pregnancies.

To ensure families receive this additional support a new clinic has been set up at the Royal Berkshire Hospital. The Rainbow Clinic offers specialist antenatal care to women in pregnancy following the loss of a baby due to late miscarriage, stillbirth or early neonatal death.

The need for the clinic became evident as members of the bereavement midwifery team cared for parents after they had lost a baby and in conversations with them during subsequent pregnancies. Parents often spoke about how challenging it was to be pregnant again after losing a baby, saying that it was difficult not to be consumed by anxiety and fear as the pregnancy progressed.

The clinic is managed by a multidisciplinary team that includes consultant obstetrician Jane Siddall, fetal medicine associate and specialist Suruchi Arora, and Rainbow specialist midwife Juliette Ward, who between them look after women in their pregnancies from booking until delivery.

Juliette says: "Parents have been at the heart of developing this important new clinic. We have worked with them every step of the way to ensure their voices were heard and their stories and experiences were incorporated into the development of the service."

Parents, staff and representatives from local support groups celebrated the launch at a special lunch.