NHS Grampian is marking 30 years of having a ward dedicated to pregnancy and baby loss.
Rubislaw Ward became Scotland’s first dedicated baby loss ward in 1993, thanks to the pioneering efforts of just a handful of members of staff who recognised the importance of delivering care to families in a sensitive way.
Scotland now has National Bereavement Care Pathways, which the team in Aberdeen helped to pilot alongside colleagues in other areas.
Bereavement support midwife, Myra Kinnaird explained: “Our unit looks after all women who experience a loss, regardless of what stage of pregnancy they are in. It is a huge privilege for us to be able to be there for families and make a difference for them at such a difficult time.
“What we offer has evolved over the years from where it started. The team was willing to lead the way back in 1993, and we’re continuing to listen to feedback from families and make improvements today.”
The team at Rubislaw will take the lessons they have learned and embed these practices within state-of-the-art facilities when they move to the new Baird Family Hospital.
READ MORE: Dr Gray's £6.6m to recruit consultants for maternity unit
Myra’s role as a dedicated bereavement support midwife was quite unique in Scotland until recently - She now works alongside her colleague Marcia Dean covering Grampian in a joint full-time role.
She added: “There’s still a lot of work to be done across the country to improve services for women and families. The need for high quality, dignified care for pregnancy loss at any stage cannot be underestimated.
“Across maternity services, it’s an honour to be there at the point people become a family. But the other side is that not everyone goes home with a baby and I have always felt strongly about the need for the right support for those families.”
In addition to NHS Grampian’s commitment to providing a person-centred approach, the team also has a longstanding commitment to research in this area.
READ MORE: No firm opening dates for delayed hospitals
Early pregnancy lead Consultant at NHS Grampian and Senior Clinical Lecturer at the Aberdeen Centre for Women’s Health Research, University of Aberdeen, Dr Andrea Woolner said: “The University of Aberdeen has a long history of conducting valuable research in pregnancy loss and this is something we are proud to be continuing.
“We are also proud to be one of the first units in Scotland to offer investigations for recurrent miscarriages after a second miscarriage (compared to previously waiting for three miscarriages prior to commencing investigations).
“This is a step which was welcomed, in the hope it can help to reduce the stress experienced by families.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here