A Canberra mother's passionate push for change has led to the opening of a dedicated early pregnancy loss unit at the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children.
Karen Schlage lost her son Charlie at 16 weeks' gestation in 2018, and a year later, spoke out about the undignified care she said she received in Canberra's public health system.
Mrs Schlage said she was given no choice but to deliver her son in the hospital's busy emergency department and later told an inquiry into Canberra's maternity services that staff referred to Charlie as "the products of conception."
"Babies have been referred to as medical waste and have been handed back to women in specimen jars," she told the visibly moved committee members.
Mrs Schlage delivered her powerful evidence to the inquiry in 2019, despite being pregnant at the time with her second baby, Sophia, who she knew had also died.
Her story led to the inquiry recommending the hospital dedicate a space to Canberrans who experience miscarriage and stillbirth — and that unit is being launched on Friday.
"It's a day of really mixed emotions," Mrs Schlage said.
"I'm quietly proud of what we've been able to achieve but there's also that really enduring sense of loss around our babies."
She said while it was a place no mother wanted to end up, it was vital that grief and loss could be experienced in an appropriate setting.
The three-bed inpatient service has been designed to separate Canberrans who have lost babies from those who are celebrating the arrival of newborns, so as to be sensitive to grieving parents.
It is expected to support around 500 people each year and can accommodate those who need to stay overnight, as well as those who require specialised care due to early pregnancy complications.
"But I think it's important that, at the same time, we acknowledge that rooms are just rooms — and it's the care offered in that space that is more important," she said.
Mrs Schlage said she has been contacted by hundreds of bereaved Canberra women since publicly sharing her story four years ago.
"This is an infinite grief. The loss of a child is something that you never get over. It does change shape, and you change shape around that grief, but it is always there," Mrs Schlage said.
"And I'm coping in the sense that this is a real legacy. This is a way for our two babies, Charlie and Sophia, to have had some impact, and for us to have that tangible sense that they have been here and they have meant something to people."
Mrs Schlage has recently been awarded a Churchill Fellowship for her advocacy and said she would be travelling overseas to learn how volunteers have been integrated into overseas maternity wards, assisting families in their grief long after they were discharged from hospital.
A destination for those presenting to emergency departments in the middle of the night
Assistant director of midwifery at Canberra Health Services, Wendy Alder, said the new unit was evidence of a cultural shift towards women-centred care.
"We acknowledge that every woman's journey through pregnancy is an individual case," Ms Alder said.
"And we might not always get it right for every person who we encounter in our care, but we continue to strive every day to improve."
She said perhaps the most practical benefit of the unit was that Canberrans with early pregnancy complications now had an alternative to the hospital's emergency department.
"Women often present to the emergency department in the middle of the night with concerns about their pregnancy and they'll now have the ability to be promptly transferred to this unit and not have to remain for long periods of time in the emergency department."
Ms Alder said the unit would be staffed by nurses and midwives who were "trained in trauma-informed care" and that there was a quiet room for partners and relatives.
The Centenary Hospital for Women and Children has also recently refurbished its antenatal and gynaecology unit which is also part of the hospital's wider $50 million expansion.
Bid for bereavement suites at all Australian hospitals
A wider push for bereavement suites at all Australian public hospitals has also been launched with a current e-petition to the Australian parliament.
The plea stated that women who had lost babies were feeling distressed having to spend time in maternity wards "surrounded by women in labour and hearing the cries of newborns".
"All of this only adds more stress and trauma," the woman who launched the petition said.
"There's all these different wards for different reasons but not one for this … we should not be expected to give birth right next to someone birthing a live baby."
The bid has so far garnered almost 30,000 signatures but it is unclear when the petition will be presented to the House of Representatives.
"[Bereavement suites] would mean so much to families going through termination of pregnancy, stillbirth and neonatal deaths."
