New specialist midwife role to support bereaved familes

Ms Loughton, who previously held a similar role in Bradford for two years, currently sees families from the point of diagnosis of foetal loss, throughout labour, and then follows them up postnatally, seeing them jointly with the consultant obstetrician. There are plans to expand the role to previously bereaved women who have become pregnant again.

She who joined the trust in January, has already made a huge impact. She said: “My main priority is to develop a high quality service caring for bereaved families when a baby dies either before labour or shortly after.

“Unfortunately across the country, care for these families is very much down to a ‘postcode lottery’ which seems so incredibly unfair. Thankfully it has now been recommended by the Department of Health that all NHS maternity units have someone in post to care for these families.”

She added: “I feel hugely privileged to be able to provide bereaved women and their families care here at Newham University Hospital NHS Trust, working closely with other members of the team including doctors, midwives, chaplaincy and mortuary staff. I feel that in time we will have an obstetric bereavement service we can all be proud of.”

Scott Johnston, Head of Midwifery, said: “We are delighted that Angela has joined the trust in this new role. She is a great asset to our team and providing a highly-valued service to bereaved families at what is naturally, a very distressing time for them.”

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