Understanding Baby Loss

Led by writer and grief researcher of Loughborough University, Dr Tamarin Norwood, who worked in collaboration with Held In Our Hearts to develop new creative writing resources to allow bereaved parents to explore, document, and navigate their journey of bereavement after the death of a precious baby.

Together they have created two resources: a grief writing group, and packs of 'From The Heart Notelets': note cards offering writing prompts to help families capture fleeting thoughts and memories. These notecards are now provided free of charge to all families supported Held In Our Hearts, through five NHS Boards in Scotland, and their reach is continuing to grow.

This project has spurred further research into the lived experience of losing of a precious baby. Dr Norwood is now PI on a three-year Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship, working with national baby loss charities Held in Our Hearts, Sands, and Antenatal Results and Choices, to learn from parents about the meanings and rituals they invent in reproductive loss when cultural narratives fail to serve them. 

Dr Norwood's memoir of baby loss 'The Song of the Whole Wide World' (Indigo, 2024), and her essay on the subject 'Something Good Enough' (The Lancet, 2021), are now integrated into medical and midwifery curricula in the UK and Australia, helping to train healthcare professionals of the future.