Heartbroken at losing her daughter, she made a choice that will change lives

Lauren Caulfield's daughter Grace was stillborn nearly fear years ago. It's tragedy that forged her career path and could change care for grieving families across the NHS . Now in her third and final year studying midwifery at the University of Manchester , the 29-year-old has turned her heartbreak into a mission to improve bereavement care. She said her own experiences with grief following the tragic loss of her daughter exposed major gaps in maternity bereavement training.

And after choosing to study midwifery in a bid to make the changes she wishes she had seen, she noticed that bereavement education is often 'overlooked' in maternity training. Click here to get the biggest stories straight to your inbox in our Daily Newsletter This led her to create an app designed to help student midwives and maternity staff provide compassionate care to anyone experiencing pregnancy or baby loss. Named 'Gracefully' after her daughter, the app acts as a 'one-stop shop' for bereavement care guidance, covering everything from breaking bad news to supporting parents during future pregnancies. The idea came after Lauren's first and only experience of maternity care, which led to her daughter being stillborn in 2022.

"I feel like [my care] could have been improved," she told the Manchester Evening News . "Through doing the midwifery course myself, I understood where some of the gaps in the knowledge could have come from because unless you're specialised in this area, you don’t get a lot of exposure to it." She then chose to turn her painful experience into 'something beautiful' and create 'Gracefully', which she says addresses that gap in education. "It aims to make sure sure that, as qualified professionals, we're able to provide the best care possible to these families and give them all the information they may need," Lauren said. "Baby loss is a really difficult area for anyone, but especially for parents it's so important that we're getting it right." The app also guidance around memory-making - helping families spend time with their baby through activities such as dressing, bathing and creating memory boxes.

Her work has already gained national recognition. Earlier this year, Lauren won the Royal College of Midwives' (RCM) Outstanding Contribution to Pregnancy Loss and Bereavement Care award after co-designing a digital bereavement clinical placement programme now being piloted across multiple universities. Now, 'Gracefully' has also been selected as one of just 26 innovations chosen for the Ripple Women's Digital Health Challenge - a UK-wide programme supporting digital tools tackling underserved areas of women's healthcare. Lauren said: "I'm absolutely thrilled to have been selected for this programme.

I'm passionate about creating meaningful change, and this programme offers the support to help turn that vision into reality." Participants like Lauren receive support to design, build and pilot digital tools in real-world NHS environments, helping bridge the gap between innovation and patient access. Lauren also says the digital aspect of her app could help to tackle a "postcode lottery" in bereavement support. "Bereavement care is often overlooked in all aspects of maternity education. It's often a bit of an add-on, and research has shown it's quite fragmented in different parts of the country," she said.

"Some people get great exposure, some don't." "That was the thought behind it - how can we make something equitable?" Lauren added. "The vast majority have access to a smartphone they can keep in their pocket and take out if they need advice about how to do something specific." Despite receiving national recognition, Lauren admitted she never expected to be selected for the programme. "Being a student, you can often feel like, 'I'm just a student, what can I provide?'," she said. "It was really amazing and empowering for the Cogniss team to recognise that this is such an important area and that this innovation could help so many people."