Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In October, we mark Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and we do so to acknowledge the shared loss experienced by parents, friends, healthcare workers and community when babies are lost through miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death. I have spoken on this in previous years not because of lived experience but because, in my early years in this place, there hadn't been a lot of discussion about these matters, and I commend the efforts of the member for Werriwa to share her story and highlight the issue. And I commend those who have shared such personal stories tonight, like the member of Melbourne.

I'm really heartened that, when we speak about this now, we do it not only to acknowledge the grief and the loss; we can share some of the many practical supports the Albanese government has put in place, because that's a start. Around six babies are stillborn each day in Australia, and an estimated one-in-four pregnancies results in miscarriage. Each year in Australia, more than 110,000 families experience stillbirth or miscarriage. That is a lot of heartbreak and grief for many people.

So what are we doing to support these people? We've invested more than $62 million over five years in measures to support healthy pregnancies, reduce stillbirth and preterm birth, improve national data collection and support families impacted by perinatal loss. There are many actions within that funding envelope, from a national audit of early pregnancy assessment service clinics across Australia so that women and families can access appropriate services in their local area for treatment and follow-up care, through to a miscarriage data scoping study to establish existing and potential data sources and options for the national collection of miscarriage data, which we need.

I want to focus on a couple of our most recent announcements. We've provided $3.2 million over four years to Red Nose Australia to deliver the Healing Through Community projects, supporting families through stillbirth and miscarriage. Healing Through Community resources support stillbirth and miscarriage bereavement care services for First Nations families, refugee and migrant communities, women and families living in rural and remote areas, and women under 20 years of age. While any pregnancy can result in stillbirth or miscarriage, rates remain high for women in these communities. It was co-designed because we really need to listen to the women involved, and to the healthcare professionals, to get this right.

Another initiative is research into a simple blood test that could save the lives of hundreds of babies each year. It's the focus of new medical research funding, with $25 million for research into infertility, pregnancy loss and stillbirth.

The TIM TAMs study, led by Professor Stephen Tong from the University of Melbourne, received $2 million. His work aims to validate the first placental health test across Australia. The research team believes that a simple blood test could help health professionals better work out which pregnancies are at risk of stillbirth. These pregnancies could then be closely watched, and births scheduled to prevent stillbirth or other health problems. By better understanding the risk factors and causes, researchers believe more stillbirths could be prevented.

The third practical measure I want to speak of is a new law working its way through the parliament. The bill is named after baby Priya, who heartbreakingly died when she was just 42 days old. After informing her employer that her child had passed away, Priya's mum was faced with negotiating with her employer a return to work she hadn't planned for, at the same time as grieving the loss of her child. The new bill ensures that, unless employers and employees have expressly agreed otherwise, employer funded paid parental leave must not be cancelled because a child is stillborn. This brings it into line with our government paid parental leave, and I hope that will bring certainty to grieving parents.

I want to take just a moment to acknowledge loss experienced by some people going through the IVF journey. It's a newer experience, but I've seen sadness when another round of eggs has failed to fertilise, or when embryos haven't successfully transferred. I think, as science provides more hope for people, along the way there can be many disappointments, and we grieve all of those.

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