About Us
Researchers + Clinicians
Parents
Season’s Greetings! As the year draws to a close, we want to sincerely thank you for your continued support throughout 2024.
We understand that the holiday season can be particularly challenging for those who have experienced the loss of a baby and our thoughts are with you during this time. If you’re seeking support, we encourage you to reach out to organisations such as Red Nose, Pink Elephant or Bears of Hope.
Wishing you peace and comfort this holiday season.
A message from the co-directors:
As we close another productive year, we reflect on the significant strides made in reducing the impact of stillbirth and neonatal death on families and communities across Australia. This progress could not have been achieved without strong partnerships working with a shared vision.
Parents are increasingly involved in this work and engagement has been strengthened with over 200 members now on the Stillbirth Research Involvement Registry, providing invaluable parent perspectives and input into research. We are grateful to all parents involved and the Stillbirth Foundation Australia for their ongoing support in this initiative.
The Safer Baby Bundle continues to be integrated into maternity care across the country. Our ongoing efforts to adapt resources and deliver targeted educational programs for clinicians supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, migrant, and refugee women and their families are playing a pivotal role in embedding culturally appropriate stillbirth prevention strategies.
In partnership with the Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand (PSANZ), we were thrilled to launch the NHMRC-approved Care After Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Guidelines at the PSANZ Congress. This milestone, combined with the IMPROVE educational program’s busiest year to date, highlights the growing reach of education for HCP to ensure optimal care is provided for all parents who experience perinatal loss. We thank the expanding team of national educators for their dedication to this important program.
Over the past year we have continued our strong partnerships internationally as part of the International Stillbirth Alliance networks. In October the Stillbirth CRE team joined the launch of the Utah Centre of Excellence Stillbirth as founding partners, contributing to the global expansion of initiatives like IMPROVE. ISA Stillbirth Advocacy Working Group continues to campion awareness and drive action to reduce stillbirth rates globally. At last month’s ISA Conference in Sri Lanka, the team presented insightful talks on the Safer Baby Bundle and parent involvement initiatives, while also leading an IMPROVE workshop to showcase best practices in stillbirth prevention and care.
To our partners and collaborators and parents involved with the Stillbirth CRE, it has been a pleasure working with you this year. A special thanks to our team at Stillbirth CRE coordinating centre whose dedication makes all of this possible. Looking ahead to 2025, we remain committed to reducing stillbirths and improving care for families remains absolute. Thank you for your ongoing support, and we look forward to continuing this vital journey together.
Thank you for your continued support and commitment to this important work.
Warm regards,
Prof Vicki Flenady and Prof David Ellwood
Co-Directors
PSANZ 2025 Congress is just around the corner, taking place from 14–19 March 2025. As part of this event, the Stillbirth CRE is delighted to host two pre-congress workshops on Friday, 14 March. We invite you to join us.
Join Stillbirth CRE’s Pre-Congress Workshops at PSANZ
IMPROVE Workshop
Date: Friday, 14 March 2025
Time: 8:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Location: Mater Mothers’ Hospital
Pathways to Best Practice Care After Perinatal Loss
Date: Friday, 14 March 2025
Time: 1:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Location: Rydges South Bank
2025 Waves of Change: Birth
We are thrilled to announce that the 2025 Waves of Change: Birth conference will take place on 8–9 August 2025 in Brisbane, Queensland. This event will combine the Stillbirth CRE’s Annual National Stillbirth forum and the QLD Maternal Fetal Medicine symposium for 2 days of learning and collaboration.
This premier Queensland conference will feature a stellar lineup of international and national multidisciplinary speakers, delivering insights into the latest advancements in maternity clinical care and stillbirth prevention. Be at the forefront of the conversation about birth and beyond with cutting-edge topics that matter most to you and your practice.
Registration opening early 2025!
The survey is part of the evaluation of the Stronger Bubba Born initiative.
We invite Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women who are 16 years of age and above and are either currently pregnant or were pregnant in the previous 3 years.
Your responses will help ensure that information and resources for pregnant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are tailored towards actively promoting culturally responsive pregnancy care, particularly in relation to stillbirth prevention and care.
The survey takes approximately 15 minutes to complete. Take the survey here: Women’s Survey
The Healthcare Professional survey is part of the evaluation of the Cultural Adaptation of the Safer Baby Bundle, which includes the Stronger Bubba Born and Growing a Healthy Baby initiatives.
We invite clinicians who provide maternity care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and/or migrant or refugee women to complete the survey.
Your insights will help inform the evaluation of culturally appropriate resources designed to reduce the chance of stillbirth and improve care. The survey will take 10-15 minutes to complete and your responses are completely anonymous.
Take the survey here: Healthcare Professionals Survey
The Endometrial Origins of Stillbirth (EOS) Study is a biological study of women’s menstrual fluid.
You may be eligible to participate if you are menstruating and have had a pregnancy complicated by preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction or resulting in a preterm birth or stillbirth in the past 3 years.
You will receive a free menstrual cup and be asked to collect a sample which can be conveniently picked up from your home (or work) on day 2 of your period.
Learn more & express interest here: Endometrial Origins of Stillbirth (EOS) Study- Hudson Institute of Medical Research
We invite final-year medical, nursing, and midwifery students, as well as recent graduates within the last five years (you can still participate even if you do not currently provide maternity care).
This survey seeks to understand the current state of perinatal death education and to identify gaps in training programs. Your participation will provide valuable insights that can help improve educational curricula and enhance the quality of care provided to bereaved families.
Access the survey here: https://monashred.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6F2gAlUT8AgfTsG
For questions or to learn more email Dr Keeth Mayakaduwage
The Placental Consortium Webinar Series has had a busy 2024 showcasing novel research. Held monthly from February to October (excluding September), this series brought together renowned speakers from Australia, New Zealand, and the USA, engaging participants with diverse topics.
Chaired by Dr. Sharon McCracken and Dr. Vicki Clifton, this year’s webinars featured highlights such as Jumping Genes in Embryonic and Germ Cell Development, Omega-6 Diet Impacts on Renal Development, and Predicting Fetal Growth Restriction and Adverse Outcomes.
With over 280 participants across eight sessions, the series continues to encourage collaboration and advance knowledge in placental and fetal health.
To get involved, please email stillbirthcre@mater.uq.edu.au
2025 webinar series coming soon!
The IMPROVE program has achieved remarkable success across Australia and internationally in 2024! This year, the team delivered 20 workshops, reaching clinicians across six states and training 518 healthcare professionals along with 36 new educators. Beyond Australia, IMPROVE expanded globally, hosting workshops in Utah and Sri Lanka, training 96 healthcare professionals and an additional 28 new educators were trained to enhance care for families experiencing perinatal loss.
We are grateful to the clinicians who generously volunteer their time to teach the workshops, contributing to IMPROVE’s lasting success and meaningful impact for families who experience perinatal loss.
We look forward to bringing IMPROVE to even more hospitals and clinicians in 2025.
If you are interested about booking an IMPROVE workshop at your health service, please email us at improve@mater.uq.edu.au
To complete our free online e-learning: https://learn.stillbirthcre.org.au/
Since its establishment in May 2023, the Stillbirth Research Involvement Registry has grown to include 200 bereaved parents and family members. This registry serves as a platform for individuals across Australia who identify as bereaved parents or those who have been impacted by baby loss to express their interest in contributing to stillbirth research.
A significant milestone was achieved in April 2024 with the formation of the Stillbirth CRE Bereaved Parent Advocacy Committee. This marks a new chapter in meaningful bereaved parent involvement. The committee deliberately chose the term advocacy over advisory to emphasise their active role in fostering research partnerships and advocating for impactful change. This reflects the Stillbirth CRE’s commitment to ensuring bereaved families have a strong voice in research and that findings are translated effectively back into the community.
The Advocacy Committee comprises 16 bereaved parents (recruited via the registry), including representatives from parent support organisations such as Red Nose, Still Aware, and Bears of Hope, alongside stillbirth researchers and collaborators with expertise in consumer engagement. The committee is focused on developing a sustainable framework to support and strengthen research partnerships among bereaved families, researchers, and healthcare providers.
The registry offers members a quarterly newsletter with opportunities to engage in research and connects them directly with research project roles suited to their interests. In 2024 alone, we have placed ~50 parents onto research projects, steering committees, working groups and with speaking and advocacy opportunities to share their stories at conferences, webinars and related events.
If you are a perinatal loss researcher seeking bereaved parent involvement in co-designing, conducting, or translating your work, please contact Kirstin at stillbirthcre@mater.uq.edu.au
Together, we continue to build a future where bereaved families and researchers collaborate to create meaningful, impactful change in stillbirth research.
The Waves of Change: Improving Perinatal Care conference, held from August 9-11, 2024, successfully brought together healthcare professionals, researchers, and parents to address the prevention, prediction, and management of adverse pregnancy outcomes, with a focus on stillbirth. The event integrated the Annual National Stillbirth Forum and the Queensland Maternal Fetal Medicine Symposium and was sponsored by GE Healthcare and the Stillbirth Foundation Australia.
Key Highlights:
We look forward to growing this event and running in again in 2025.
Throughout the year, our team was actively engaged in several key presentations and initiatives addressing stillbirth prevention and care achieving significant milestones.
Key highlights include:
We remain committed to continuing our efforts to prevent stillbirth and improve antenatal care in 2025. Thank you for the ongoing support and dedication to the Safer Baby Bundle initiative.
Safer Baby Bundle resources for multicultural communities Safer Baby Bundle has developed numerous resources to assist maternity care providers to provide culturally appropriate care aimed at reducing the rates of stillbirth:
The newly launched Utah Stillbirth Center of Excellence (USCOE) was thrilled to host the Stillbirth CRE team of IMPROVE Educators at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, USA, in October! Prof Vicki Flenady, Prof Adrienne Gordon, A/Prof Chris Lehner, Prof Jane Dahlstrom, and Megan Weller were joined by Prof Alex Heazell of Tommy’s at the University of Manchester, UK, to round out the master trainer team, providing two IMPROVE workshops and a train the trainer session certifying trainees from different states across USA. USCOE, for whom CRE are a Founding Partner, will be delivering the US-adapted IMPROVE workshop across the country, and several sites including most recently Northwestern University in Chicago.
USCOE was also delighted to host Val Ah Chee for a special session at our Stillbirth Symposium: Closing the Gaps focused on stillbirth resilience among First Nations populations, together with a traditional healer from the Navajo Nation. Professors Flenady, Gordon and Dahlstrom also all contributed to this first-ever equity focused stillbirth symposium in the USA, with presentations on the Safer Baby Bundle, fetal movement monitoring, and perinatal pathology.
At the Stillbirth CRE we are proud to be a part of this important work to reduce stillbirth globally.
We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Siobhan Loughnan and Dr. Christine Andrews have both been awarded the Future Leaders Fellowship for 2025!
This fellowship is designed to support the next generation of leaders in their pursuit of innovative research and impactful contributions to their fields. We extend our heartfelt congratulations.
We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Kristen Haakons, who has embarked on her PhD journey with us, focusing on Prognosticating Perinatal Outcomes in Pregnant Women Presenting With Decreased Fetal Movements.
Dr Haakons will explore novel prognostic markers or models to predict perinatal outcome and public health factors which may improve clinicians’ decision-making ability around interventions for this increasingly common clinical scenario.
We look forward to seeing this important work!
We are excited to share that Megan Weller, who has been a valued member of the Stillbirth CRE team for many years, is now embarking on a PhD focused around best practice guidelines for the care after stillbirth and neonatal death: creating a toolkit for rural services.
Megan will work with healthcare professionals and bereaved parents to expand the existing successful national education program (IMPROVE) to support and sustain evidence-based care and address care inequities in maternity settings, specifically for those working and receiving healthcare in rural and remote service settings in Australia, including caring for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and families.
We look forward to supporting Megan in this next chapter and seeing the positive outcomes her work will bring!
Keep up to date with some of our recent publications.
Once again, thank you for your continued support
Level 3, Aubigny Place
Mater Research Institute
Raymond Terrace,
South Brisbane QLD 4101
The University of Queensland Faculty of Medicine