Bereaved parents are being helped to cope with the loss of a baby thanks to a ground-breaking new therapy at Burton's Queen's Hospital.
Burton's specialist bereavement midwives Sam Evans and Joanne Shillito are now providing a proactive approach in cases of complex grieving through 'eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy' which is tailored to help parent dealing with the loss of a child.
The midwives said the therapy has been introduced because it is impossible to predict the significance of a loss of a baby during pregnancy or death of a baby soon after birth to any mother or father.
For some people the negative or traumatic memories of the loss of a baby can begin to interfere with daily life moving forward, they said.
Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing is a therapy that uses eye movements to repeatedly stimulate the left and right sides of the brain and is a way of reprocessing traumatic memories.
The rapid eye movement used alongside an information processing model can relax a patient, cause a shift of negative to positive emotion and reduce emotional trauma when recalling a memory.
The midwives have said that women who have been treated with eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing at the Belvedere Road hospital have responded extremely positively.
There was now a plan to look into expanding the availability of the therapy to other patients within the hospital, including vulnerable women, those with tocophobia, the fear of childbirth, and even to staff members to enhance wellbeing within the workforce.
One mother, who did not want to be named, said: "After my newborn son passed away I was struggling a lot with anxiety and flash backs to his traumatic birth.
In the eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing sessions Sam helped me create a safe place that I can use to help with my anxiety, she also taught me how to replace the bad memories and images with more positive ones.
"When I started the sessions I couldn't even walk into the hospital alone, but since the sessions my flashbacks have dramatically reduced."
Burton's eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing project has been shortlisted for a Health Service Journal Award in the Maternity and Midwifery Services category.
Joanne has also delivered a presentation to the judging panel in London about the project, earlier this month.
