On the second day of Baby Loss Awareness Week, the Pregnancy Loss Research Group is launching a policy brief to support advocacy efforts around the introduction of workplace supports for people who experience pregnancy loss under 24 weeks. This summarises findings from the PLACES (Pregnancy Loss in Workplaces: Informing policymakers on support mechanisms) project, which was conducted by researchers at University College Cork and the University of Galway.

Driving evidence-informed change in policy and practice is a core part of our work at the Pregnancy Loss Research Group. As Baby Loss Awareness Week begins, we wish to take the opportunity to highlight some of the activities that we will be engaging in over the course of the week – as part of our ongoing efforts to effect change around all forms of pregnancy and infant loss.

Two hundred delegates attended a Fetal Medicine Study Day delivered by world-leading experts at University College Cork (UCC) on Friday 27 September. The event was hosted by the Pregnancy Loss Research Group, in collaboration with the International Fetal Medicine & Surgery Society (IFMSS) and RCSI, with support from the Health Research Board.

The 41^st meeting of the International Fetal Medicine & Surgery Society (IFMSS) is taking place at Castlemartyr, Co. Cork from 22-26 September. The 2024 meeting is organised by Prof Greg Ryan, President, IFMSS who is based at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ​Professor Keelin O’Donoghue is the local organiser and also organiser of the Fetal Medicine Study Day which will be held at Devere Hall, University College Cork on Friday, 27 September.

The National Clinical Guidelines are a programme of work agreed between the National Women and Infants Health Programme (NWIHP) and the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (IOG) of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI). Established in mid-2021, the Guideline Programme Team recently published its Summer 2024 Update. To date 20 guidelines have been launched under the new Guideline Programme (see details below) and a further 24 guidelines are under development.

The 15^th International Graphic Medicine Conference took place at the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) Athlone from 16-18 July. Attended by Professor Keelin O'Donoghue, Dr Brendan Fitzgerald and Marita Hennessy PhD, the event explored how to communicate complex medical information through comics and art, and included work from the Pregnancy Loss Research Group.

Professor Keelin O’Donoghue and Dr Alex Dakin attended and presented at the 28^th International Conference on Prenatal Diagnosis and Therapy, held in Boston from 07-10 July 2024.

We are currently inviting applications for a Postdoctoral Researcher – Knowledge Broker to support knowledge translation for academic research projects and community-based activities across women’s health services in Ireland, under the aegis of the National Women and Infants Health Programme (NWIHP). This is a two-year, full-time position.

Congratulations to Dr Laura Linehan who was a joint winner of the UCC College of Medicine and Health Postgraduate Researcher of the Year 2024 Award. This award recognises outstanding contribution by a postgraduate research student in their research field.

Ruadh Kelly-Harrington and Marita Hennessy PhD presented a series of studies from the PLACES project at the recent Gender Work and Organization Conference (GWO2024). The hybrid session was the second of three concurrent sessions on grief and loss in organisations.