It is estimated that one in eight pregnancies end in miscarriage, with recurrent miscarriage affecting 1 in 100 (NHS, 2022). A further 1 in every 200 births in England result in stillbirth (NHS, 2021), while the Office for National Statistics (2023) reported that 7.6% of live births in England and Wales were premature (<37 weeks' gestation) in 2021.
Beyond Bea is a UK-based charity that aims to raise awareness of baby loss and best practices in the health sector. Beyond Bea aims to provide all healthcare professionals and students with accessible baby loss and bereavement care training.
The charity was set up in 2018 by its founder, and registered midwife, Steph Wild, following the death of Steph's daughter, Bea, in 2017 (Beyond Bea, 2023a). Bea had been diagnosed with a significant brain abnormality during pregnancy and died at 23 weeks and 4 days gestation. Steph recognised through her own personal loss and professional experience that bereavement care training in the UK was often inconsistent, undervalued and inaccessible.
Beyond Bea's ethos has always been that high-quality bereavement training should be available to any professional who may support a family when their baby has died.
Online training
Beyond Bea (2023b) launched its new online training platform in 2023, which allows learners to access its training modules at their convenience, working around people's busy life and work or study commitments. The training primarily caters for midwives and midwifery students, but can also be accessed by a range of other public sector professionals including paramedics, nurses, police, funeral directors and hospice teams.
The online platform means that Beyond Bea's training has become more accessible, and more available. The platform is constantly updated and reviewed, with latest best practices and techniques. The areas of study include:
- Defining baby loss
- Language and communication
- Diagnosis
- Signs of life
- Physical care of a baby who has died
- Caring for bereaved families
- Memory making
- Memory making at <16 weeks' gestation
- Clothing for babies who have died
- Resources for families
- Parents' perspectives
- Support after loss
- Breast milk suppression
- Milk donations and choices
- Post-mortem and investigations
- Funerals
- Cooling a baby
- Photography when a baby has died.
Information for families when a baby has died
Families who experience baby loss are often faced with lots of decisions and possibilities. However, this is often at a time close to birthing their baby and can feel overwhelming, particularly if the family was not prepared for the possibility of baby loss.
To help support families when a baby has died, Beyond Bea (2023c) created a specialist resource, called the ‘alternative birth bag’. The resource is a written booklet that enables health professionals to easily signpost information to families, and offers a gentle introduction to what is going to happen next, what they may want to do to prepare, what they may wish to pack and how they can prepare for how they may feel.
Beyond Bea is passionate about helping families feel more empowered about what is to come. Many families will go home (typically awaiting induction) feeling overwhelmed and confused. The information contained in the alternative birth bag is designed to help with this, and was created by condensing feedback from bereaved families and healthcare professionals.
The information is intended for those experiencing baby loss at 16 weeks' gestation or later. The booklet has been designed to be specific to late miscarriage, termination and stillbirth.
So far, 56 trusts have signed up to provide the alternative birth bag to families (Beyond Bea, 2023c). Bereavement leads can sign up to order to the resource online for free and will initially receive 30 copies of the booklet (Beyond Bea, 2023c). The resource also contains four posters to highlight to healthcare professionals in the trust that the resource is now available, as well as pregnancy after loss stickers and the Beyond Bea rainbow baby book insert.
Beyond Bea is dedicated to providing help and support to families experiencing baby loss. Their range of services include conferences and interactive baby loss training, as well as the alternative birth bag.