Working Together — Stronger Futures CRE

Working Together to
Make Pregnancy Safer

Some women and families are more likely to experience stillbirth than others, including women of refugee backgrounds. We aren’t always sure why this happens, but we know that culturally safe pregnancy care is critical to addressing preventable stillbirth.

Working Together to Make Pregnancy Safer is about working in partnership with families of refugee and migrant backgrounds, interpreters, and health professionals, to understand and support culturally safe approaches to stillbirth prevention in Australian pregnancy care.

This webpage summarises work undertaken by the Intergenerational Health group and Stronger Futures CRE, in collaboration with the Stillbirth CRE, 2019-2024.

What is already known?

In Australia and other high-income countries socio-economic disparities in stillbirth prevention persist. Very little is known about how women and families of refugee and migrant backgrounds would like to receive information about stillbirth prevention, nor what it is like for health professionals and interpreters to have these conversations with families during pregnancy care.

What this study adds

Working Together to Make Pregnancy Safer seeks to understand what can be done to ensure approaches to stillbirth prevention in pregnancy care are equitable and culturally safe. Interviews, discussion groups, and co-design workshops led by community researchers were undertaken with recent parents from Afghan, Karen, Arabic, Indian, and South Sudanese communities. Interviews were also undertaken with obstetricians, midwives, and interpreters working in pregnancy care settings.

This understanding has been used to:

Culturally adapt the Safer Baby Bundle
Generate professional development modules for health professionals and interpreters working in Australian pregnancy care settings

What’s next?

Professional development modules for health professionals and interpreters working in Australian pregnancy care settings are available on the Stillbirth CRE LEARN site.

Evaluation of these modules will be used to identify opportunities to provide additional education and support to health professionals and interpreters working with women and families of refugee and migrant backgrounds in pregnancy.