Working Together to
Make Pregnancy Safer
Some women and families are more likely to experience stillbirth than others, including women of refugee background. We aren’t always sure why this happens, but we know that to prevent stillbirth women need access to culturally safe pregnancy care.
To help prevent stillbirth in Australia, a Safer Baby Bundle has been developed by the Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence. The Intergenerational Health group at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, in partnership with Foundation House, culturally adapted the Bundle to help meet the needs of women and families of refugee backgrounds.
Project Advisory Group
This project has been working with Karen (speaking S’Gaw Karen), Iraqi (speaking Arabic), Afghan (speaking Dari), and South Sudanese (speaking Dinka) communities in Victoria.
A Project Advisory Group with community members, health professionals, and interpreters helped us design and undertake the project, and is now helping us to share our findings.
What this project adds
Culturally appropriate stillbirth prevention resources for women and families
We have developed stillbirth prevention resources in women’s preferred languages for use in Australian maternity care settings.
Professional development for health professionals and interpreters
We are developing online professional development for health professionals and interpreters working with women and families of refugee and migrant backgrounds during pregnancy in Australia. The modules are due for release on the Centre of Research Excellence in Stillbirth website in the first half of 2024.
Community Researchers leading work with communities of refugee background
ماريان
Maryaan Essa
Iraqi and Syrian communities speaking Arabic
شگوفه
Shogoufa Hydari
Afghan community
speaking Dari
ၡဲဒိၤ
Shadow Toke
Karen community speaking S’gaw Karen
Akuc Deng
South Sudanese community speaking Dinka
James Mayen
South Sudanese community speaking Dinka
What’s next?
The Working Together team has been working with the South Sudanese community in Melbourne to understand recent parent’s experiences of maternity care, including approaches to stillbirth prevention.
The team plans to release a policy and practice brief outlining opportunities to enhance safety for South Sudanese Australian women and families within Victorian maternity services in 2024.
Where can I read more?
Working Together to Make Pregnancy Safer: Co-designing approaches to sharing information to prevent stillbirth in communities of refugee background
Study summary (English)
المشاركة في تصميم مصادر لمشاركة
المعلومات لمنع المشاكل اثناء الحمل في
مجتمعات المهاجرين واللاجئين.
Study Summary (Arabic)
တၢ်မၤသကိာ်တၢ် တၢ်ရဲၣ်တၢ်ကျဲၤအံၤ မၤတၢ်လၢကရၤလီၤတၢ်ဂ့ၢ်တၢ်ကျိၤ ဒ်သိးကတြီပဒီ ဖိဃ့ လၢ ၦၤတဝၢလၢဟဲလၢဘၣ်ကီခဲတၢ်လီၢ်သ့ၣ်တဖၣ်အကျါလီၤ.
Study Summary (S’gaw Karen)
طراحی رویکردهای مشترک برای در دسترس قرار دادن اطلا عات برای جلوگیری از زابمان طفل مرده در بین جوامع با سابقه پناهندگی
Study Summary (Dari)
Who can I contact for more information?
Stephanie Brown
stephanie.brown@mcri.edu.au
Laura Biggs
laura.biggs@mcri.edu.au