PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Ms WITTY (Melbourne) (13:06): October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and Thursday 15 October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. More than 110,000 Australians experience a miscarriage each year, more than 2,000 experience stillbirths and almost 700 families lose a baby within the first 28 days. For me and my husband, trying to become parents did not follow the well-worn path.

We were trying and then my sister became pregnant. I was delighted for her and I remember thinking, 'Perhaps I'll be next.' Then a close friend became pregnant. Then my sister's close friend did.

Of course, I was happy for them, but there was always the thought in the back of my mind: when is it going to be my turn? And then it was. I was pregnant.

But what we didn't know was that that pregnancy was going to be the one in four that end in loss. Paul and I were overjoyed. We had plans and hopes and had already started imagining life with a new family.

We went in for our first scan filled with excitement and anticipation. We were laughing a lot. That morning I remember noticing that I was not as hungry as I had been.

The queasiness feeling had gone. I sort of felt normal again. I didn't know that my body was telling me something was wrong.

During the scan, they started asking questions. 'How many weeks are you?' 'Are you sure?' 'Do you know that there are two babies?' We did not. Then the news hit us like a sledgehammer. The babies were dead, and the laughter stopped.

This was my first experience of pregnancy loss. We know that pregnancy loss is not evenly shared. Stillbirth rates are higher among First Nations women, some culturally diverse women and women living in rural and remote communities.

The Albanese Labor government is acting to prevent these deaths. The National Stillbirth Action Implementation Plan is working to reduce stillbirth and improve the care families receive afterwards. Its work includes better clinical guidance, research and education, improved stillbirth investigations and the national implementation of the Safer Baby Bundle.

Our government has committed more than $75 million to measures to reduce stillbirth and preterm birth and support families affected by perinatal loss. The national preterm birth prevention program is a $19 million Commonwealth investment supporting a coordinated national approach to preventing babies being born prematurely, including clinical strategies, work across jurisdictions and public awareness.

More than $5.1 million has also supported improved bereavement care—and I know I needed it—including $3.2 million for Red Nose Australia Healing Through Community projects, $680,000 for health professional education and $850,000 for telehealth psychology for women and families in rural and remote Australia. The Red Nose program has also expanded support for First Nations, multicultural, refugee and migrant communities, people in rural and remote areas and younger women.

I know how hard it is to describe the grief that comes with pregnancy loss, especially when you lost something that, in some people's minds, never really was. For me, it was heavy, and yet the comments around me were often light hearted, reflecting a lack of understanding of how profound that loss was. Pregnancy loss can leave an enormous emotional toll, and, too often, the grief is invisible.

The government is addressing the mental health impacts of pregnancy loss and the broader prenatal period. Up to one in five women and one in 10 men experience anxiety and depression during this time, with almost 100,000 Australians estimated to be affected each year. The government is funding specialist perinatal mental health centres, providing parents with free mental health care, following a GP referral and mental healthcare plan.

For a long time, pregnancy and infant loss was something people often dealt with privately. For me, there was no easy thing anyone could say to make that grief go away, and you can see it still hasn't, but, sometimes, people who are grieving don't need the right words. They just need their loss to be acknowledged and to know that they are not alone.

I am thinking of everybody out there today, and I remind you that you're not alone. I commend the motion to the House.