Rainbow Baby Week

Day 2

Perinatal Mental Health in Pregnancy After Loss

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Pregnancy After Loss: Learning to Hope Again

Leila Hobart

When I became pregnant after losing our son, Oscar, people expected it to be a happy ending. They thought another pregnancy would somehow heal the pain or replace what we had lost.

The reality couldn’t have been more different.

Instead of excitement, I was consumed by fear.

Instead of dreaming about the future, I was trying to make it through each day.

Losing Oscar at 23 weeks changed me forever. It changed the way I viewed pregnancy, my body, and the world around me. The innocence that comes with a first pregnancy disappeared overnight. Once you’ve experienced the unimaginable, you know that not every pregnancy ends with taking your baby home.

When I found out I was pregnant with Bonnie, I desperately wanted to feel excited. I wanted to enjoy every moment because I knew how precious pregnancy was. But trauma has a way of protecting your heart, even when you don’t want it to.

I couldn’t allow myself to believe she was coming home.

Every scan was terrifying. In the days leading up to appointments, my anxiety would become overwhelming. I would convince myself something was wrong before anyone had even looked. Waiting to hear her heartbeat felt endless, and the relief I felt afterwards only lasted until the next wave of worry arrived.

People would tell me, “Try not to worry,” or “This pregnancy is different.”

I know they meant well, but once you’ve lost a baby, those words don’t quieten the thoughts in your head.

Every ache, every pain, every quieter movement sent me spiralling. I found myself constantly waiting for history to repeat itself.

One of the hardest parts was something I carried a lot of guilt about—I couldn’t bond with Bonnie during my pregnancy.

I loved her deeply, but I couldn’t let myself imagine life with her. I didn’t buy many baby clothes. I struggled to picture her nursery. I found it difficult to talk about the future because I was so frightened it would be taken away again.

At the time, I worried that something was wrong with me.

I questioned whether I was already failing as her mum because I didn’t feel the excitement everyone else expected.

Looking back now, I realise I wasn’t failing at all.

I was surviving.

My mind was trying to protect me from experiencing that level of heartbreak again.

The incredible thing is that the moment Bonnie was born, everything changed.

The walls I had built around my heart came down.

The bond I had been so worried about not having appeared almost instantly. Holding her in my arms for the first time brought a mixture of overwhelming love, relief, joy and sadness all at once. I finally allowed myself to believe she was here.

That doesn’t mean Oscar wasn’t with me.

He was.

He still is.

Becoming Bonnie’s mum didn’t stop me being Oscar’s mum too. My love simply grew.

Pregnancy after loss takes an enormous toll on your mental health.

For many parents, anxiety becomes a constant companion. Sleep becomes difficult. Hospital appointments become triggering. You replay previous experiences over and over again, desperately looking for reassurance that no one can truly give.

For me, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after losing Oscar. Pregnancy brought so much of that trauma back to the surface. My body remembered everything, even when I desperately wanted to move forward.

One thing I wish more people understood is that fear and gratitude can exist together.

You can be incredibly grateful to be pregnant while also being terrified.

You can love your baby deeply while struggling to bond during pregnancy.

You can smile for photos while fighting anxiety every single day.

None of these emotions make you a bad parent.

They make you a parent who has loved and lost.

If you’re reading this while navigating pregnancy after loss, please know that you are not alone.

There is no right way to experience it.

If you don’t feel excited, that’s okay.

If you don’t want to buy baby clothes yet, that’s okay.

If you need extra reassurance from your healthcare team, ask for it.

If you cry after every appointment—even the good ones—that’s okay too.

Your previous loss has changed you, and it’s okay to acknowledge that.

For me, Bonnie will always know about her big brother. Oscar is part of our family and always will be. Loving Bonnie has never meant loving Oscar any less.

Pregnancy after loss taught me that courage isn’t about being fearless.

It’s choosing to keep going despite the fear.

It’s finding hope when your heart has been broken.

And it’s believing, one day at a time, that joy can exist alongside grief.

Because it can.

I see that every time I look at Bonnie.

What does research tell us about pregnancy after loss and perinatal mental health?

Amneet Graham, Founder of Willow's Rainbow Box

After 7 years of helping families through their experiences of a new pregnancy after baby loss, I wanted to take the opportunity during Rainbow Baby Week to highlight some of the research that is out there around the impact of a new pregnancy after loss on perinatal mental health.

Around 600,000 women give birth in England and perinatal mental illness affects up to one in five new and expectant mums (NHS England, 2024). Alongside this, maternal suicide remains one of the leading causes of maternal deaths between six weeks and one year after the end of pregnancy (MBRRACE-UK, 2025). These statistics illustrate why support for perinatal mental health is incredibly important.

The impact of pregnancy after loss on perinatal mental health has been evident through my personal journey, through the stories we receive at Willow’s Rainbow Box and through research. Research specifically covering the relationship between perinatal mental health and pregnancy after loss remains limited. Here is what research currently tells us.

A meta ethnography (Fernandez-Basanta et al, 2023) synthesised 11 different studies into women’s experiences of pregnancy after loss. The study found that women reported these key experiences:

Ambivalent feelings about their pregnancy. They reported feeling hope and excitement, as well we fear, worry and vulnerability. The fears often impacted on their ability to feel ‘happy and confident’ in their pregnancy. Some also reported constant worry about experiencing another loss, or complications in pregnancy or when the baby is born - leading to problems in sleep and daily life.

Being careful in a new pregnancy. The study showed that women tried to emotionally distance themselves from the pregnancy to help protect themselves. Other protective measures included continuously monitoring the pregnancy through symptom tracking, ultrasounds and setting goals for themselves throughout the pregnancy. Some women changed their lifestyle and habits in an attempt to try to reduce the risk of experiencing another loss.

Leaning on others. Peer support, religion and a good relationship with healthcare staff were some of the reported coping mechanisms in this study.

These experiences, alone or together, have the potential to play a huge part in perinatal mental health. Support is a necessity for families navigating a variety of emotions in one situation, particularly when they are also handling uncertainty. Another study reported more depressive symptoms in women pregnant after perinatal loss (Haney and Steinman, 2026).

Emotional distancing is a protective mechanism for families - and can manifest in not wanting to plan too far ahead, not wanting to engage in activities such as shopping for baby products, planning activities around the baby and some may not want to tell others or even engage in discussion around the baby. These are all protective mechanisms, but care needs to be taken to support families with this before entering early parenthood. This is where perinatal mental health services could have a big impact.

Another study explored anxiety, stress and depression in women and their partners during pregnancy after loss (Hunter et al, 2017). The meta-analysis found a connection between perinatal loss and increased anxiety and depression, but the impact of loss on stress levels in women was not significant. They actually found that the impact on anxiety and depression was larger for men than women, but the quality of studies in this meta-analysis is a limitation, as well as the data available around psychological distress effects for partners. Further research is needed.

As someone with lived experience who has also worked with many families through pregnancy after loss, I have seen the coping mechanisms families put in place for themselves through pregnancy after loss. Some families turn to distraction, mindfulness and finding their network. It can be hard for families to break through their worries, anxieties and their mind’s perception of a new pregnancy journey that has been shaped by their lived experience.

There are still gaps in research about pregnancy after loss and mental health for fathers and other parents. There are also gaps in research around pregnancy after loss experiences for those with diverse cultural backgrounds and intersectionalities. More research is essential to understand the bigger picture.

In the studies above, there is not enough exploration of different types of loss. One study mentioned a focus on miscarriage and a need for more ‘targeted studies by perinatal loss type’ (Hunter et al, 2017). The meta ethnography also talks about the lack of representation for ‘voluntary interruptions of pregnancy due to fetal anomalies’ (Fernandez-Basanta et al, 2023).

There is a lot of potential for future research. It could also be interesting to explore how pregnancy after loss specifically impacts parenting after loss and mental health in the postnatal period - and how healthcare professionals and organisations can support these families through the transition into parenthood.

References:

Fernández-Basanta, S., Dahl-Cortizo, C., Coronado, C. and Movilla-Fernández, M.-J. (2023) ‘Pregnancy after perinatal loss: A meta-ethnography from a women’s perspective’, Midwifery, 124, p. 103762. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.midw.2023.103762 (Accessed: 28 July 2026)

Haney, C. and Steinman, K.J. (2026) ‘Depressive symptoms during pregnancy after pregnancy loss: A prospective cohort study’, Journal of Affective Disorders, 389, pp. 332–339. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2026.05.119 (Accessed: 28 July 2026).

Hunter, A., Tussis, L. and MacBeth, A. (2017) ‘The presence of anxiety, depression and stress in women and their partners during pregnancies following perinatal loss: A meta-analysis’, Journal of Affective Disorders, 223, pp. 153–164. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2017.07.004 (Accessed: 28 July 2026).

MBRRACE-UK (2025) Maternal mortality 2021–2023. National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford. Available at: https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/mbrrace-uk/data-brief/maternal-mortality-2021-2023⁠ (Accessed: 28 July 2026).