This panel is hosted by ACM Chief Midwife, Alison Weatherstone and feature Panelists Pieta Shakes, Jane Warland and Eliza Strauss.

Panelists
Pieta Shakes
Pieta Shakes is a Lecturer within the Master of Nursing at James Cook University and is a credentialed mental health nurse who founded and volunteers within the health promotion charity, Through the Unexpected. Through her program of research and consultancy, Pieta hopes to contribute to improving the experience of prenatal diagnosis for families and the professionals who support them. She has postgraduate qualifications in mental health nursing, diagnostic genomics and higher education innovative teaching and learning. Pieta is in the final stages of her PhD research into the maternal lived experience of receiving a prenatal diagnosis of agenesis of the corpus callosum, a topic was inspired by her own experience after receiving unexpected news at 32 weeks gestation.

Eliza Strauss
Eliza Strauss is a specialist Bereavement Midwife who established a unique bereavement support program at a private maternity hospital in Melbourne. Eliza saw the need to better support families following the tragic losses of their babies, and for good quality staff education to assist health practitioners in providing bereaved parents with appropriately sensitive support. Eliza was awarded the national "Excellence in Bereavement Care Award" by the Australian College of Midwives for her work in the area of perinatal loss in a maternity hospital setting. Eliza believes every family should receive best practice, quality bereavement care at every point in the painful trajectory of loss and grief. In partnership with the Centre of Perinatal Excellence (COPE), Eliza educates midwives and front-line health professionals with online training "Perinatal Loss in Practice: What hospital staff Need to Know".

Dr Jane Warland
Dr Jane Warland holds appointment as an Adjunct Associate Professor in Midwifery at University of Adelaide. She worked as a midwife from 1988-2007. She gained her PhD from the University of Adelaide in 2007 and has been an academic since early 2008. Her research track record includes identifying and exploring novel and emerging risk factors for stillbirth.

"My career is inspired and dedicated to my own lived experience of stillbirth. Researching and contributing to the efforts to reduce stillbirth for me began in 1993 when my daughter Emma was stillborn at 38 weeks. I have joined many amazing researchers both nationally and internationally to understand why some stillbirths happen and how we can help families when this tragedy occurs.

I hold appointment as an Adjunct Associate Professor in Midwifery at University of Adelaide. I pride myself to be involved in the stillbirth community, not just working behind the scenes as a researcher. My work relies heavily on the parents, family members and midwives that unfortunately see and experience stillbirth. My research not only looks to answer why this tragedy happens, but develops guidelines and resources to help better support our community that have to experience it.

For me, preventing even one stillbirth from occurring or making sure one family have as good an experience as possible, given the circumstances, is why I do what I do."