Anisa Hoxha always wanted to be a mom, but the road to getting there didn’t happen as planned. She lost her first baby, Jonathan, late stage in her pregnancy. Anisa says the stillbirth was a heart-wrenching event that left her depressed, anxious and grieving.
And then she became pregnant again.
“It’s a little bit hard because you are still thinking and grieving your first one,” she says. “But having another baby doesn’t mean you have to forget the first one. You have to deal with it, and you’re going to be strong.”
Anisa credits her strength to a network of supports that have, quite literally, carried her through her second pregnancy: her husband, her family, and a unique care program that she became a part of at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.
“I started doing lots of research to find a good hospital with great programs,” she says. That’s when she heard about the Women & Babies Subsequent Pregnancy Program. A Canadian first, this program provides care for families pregnant after experiencing a late pregnancy loss (after 15 weeks), or the loss of their baby soon after birth. Megan Fockler is the program’s advanced practice nurse, and says this model of care addresses a gap in the system. Knowing that women who experience this type of loss experience higher rates of depression, isolation and anxiety, Fockler says the program individualizes care and puts different supports into motion. The pilot phase of the program was funded by donation through the Sunnybrook Foundation, by women impacted themselves by perinatal loss.
If they prefer, women in the program don’t have to wait in the same waiting room as other expectant mothers. “Some women find it difficult to sit with other women who are happy about their pregnancy all the time. So when they come in, I know when they are coming and I meet them and bring them to my office directly,” says Fockler. Women have access to more frequent appointments, and can e-mail or phone their care providers as needed. Some women meet with the same ultrasound technician, which avoids having to repeat their medical histories to many care providers. They can also meet with a breastfeeding consultant in advance because after a perinatal loss, many women don’t trust their bodies to do what it needs to.
Additional supports are also encouraged through access to social workers, psychiatrists, prenatal educators, dietitians and external networks, like the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Network (PAIL) and Public Health Departments.
The need for this type of program is evident when you see the numbers. Fockler says in Canada, a family loses a baby late in pregnancy or within the first year of life approximately every two hours. And this number doesn’t include early pregnancy loss, which impacts more women. She says this program will inform an International Consensus Statement on Care of the Family Pregnant Subsequent to Stillbirth. Fockler says the hope is to better standardize and improve worldwide care of this patient population.
Anisa says there are no words to express how much the program helped her, offering reassurance until the day she was induced. Her son, Ryan, was born on January 9 of this year, healthy and happy. And now, she’s looking forward to celebrating her first Mother’s Day. “For my husband and I, having Ryan was a gift,” she says. “We feel so blessed. I couldn’t wait to be a mom, so now that I am a mom, I’m going to celebrate and I think I’m going to feel wonderful.”
