Dr Aventin said that there are lots of amazing midwives, bereavement nurses and healthcare practitioners, but that services are overstretched.
She said more resources are needed, both to educate healthcare professionals on how to support women after miscarriage and give them the time to provide that support.
“When women have this experience, they’re really vulnerable,” she said.
“They need sensitive communication, compassion that somebody understands what they’re going through is a significant loss for them, even if there isn’t a visible baby.”
Dr Aventin gave an example of the compassionate care she received after she had a stillbirth when a nurse saved the petals from the roses a friend had sent her.
“With tears in my eyes, I said it to the midwife ‘I forgot to water the roses’,” she said.
As she was leaving the nurse gave her a box with the white rose petals inside and said she could put them on her stillborn son’s grave.
“In the grand scheme of things, a bunch of dead roses was nothing, but this woman understood that, to me, they were Malachy’s roses.”