People with Experience of Birth Trauma or Birth Loss –  Help is Now Available

OCEAN is a new therapeutic mental health service specifically for women in Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes who have suffered the loss of a miscarriage, medical termination, a neonatal death or stillbirth or another kind of traumatic birth experience.

To coincide with Perinatal Mental Health Awareness week, the service is hosting a region wide webinar online on Friday 6 May which is open to members of the public and health professionals alike.

The webinar will be fully interactive and will allow people the opportunity to ask questions or talk about their experience. The webinar will explain how people can access the service and the kind of support they can expect to receive.

Dr Amada Spong, Principle Clinical Psychologist and Lead for Ocean across Bedfordshire, Luton & Milton Keynes explains why such a service is necessary and what she and her team hope to achieve:

“The experience of birth loss or trauma can be devastating at any time in life but often people will feel they have no alternative than to struggle on alone.

“If lucky, they may have supportive family or friends. But we are here to say that there is professional help available.

“Most importantly, people should not feel as if they have to struggle alone.”

The Ocean service is for people living in the community and offers therapeutic support evidence for which demonstrates to have a positive impact on the vast majority of people that access it.

Dr Spong continues: “The crucial thing is, to seek help as early as possible.

“We do our best to offer an initial assessment within 28 days of someone making contact for the first time.

“We welcome people from all walks of life, and are committed to the principles of equality and inclusion. This includes people who identify as LGBT.

“It is incredibly important that we take account of everyone’s individual cultural background – our clinicians are fully trained and the service is coproduced with people who have lived experience.

“It is perinatal mental health week, and so an important time to raise awareness of this issue. We look forward to welcoming people to our webinar then when they can find out more about the service and what we do.”