Care path for pregnancy loss and perinatal loss in Born in Belgium Professionals

With this project, we want to add an evidence-based and validated care path to the Born in Belgium Professionals (BiB) platform. This will support pregnant women and new mothers. It will also help their families. This assistance is for those dealing with pregnancy loss or perinatal loss. 

  • In brief:
    • To achieve this goal, existing guidelines, good practices, and available services related to pregnancy loss and perinatal loss must first be mapped out. This project will use design-thinking methods to group, organize, and prioritize these practices and guidelines. Key stakeholders will be involved at different stages. This will help create clear connections, ensure follow-up, and identify priorities.  
    • Integration with BiB involves both technical aspects as well as ensuring accessibility and user-friendliness of the care path.

Contact

Kathleen.Biesmans@kdg.be

  • Funding: PWO
  • Research center: Care in Connection
  • Duration of study: 1 September 2024 - 31 August 2025
  • External project members:
    • Prof. dr. Dorien Lanssens, University of Antwerp (UA) 
    • Christine Vanholen, Director, Berrefonds vzw 
    • Implementation team of Born in Belgium Professionals and Prof. dr. Katrien Beeckman (VUB/UZ Brussel) 

Problem statement

Born in Belgium Professionals is a web application that helps healthcare and welfare professionals screen pregnant women for 13 risks. Based on the screening, care providers can create a personalized care plan. They can get help from local organizations listed in the Sociale Kaart. Since 2018, more than 130 organizations have been involved in the project. There is a growing need to create a care path for pregnancy and perinatal loss. This is important because these losses can have a strong psychological impact. This research project aims to develop a care path for pregnancy loss and integrate it into the existing web application.

This project builds upon our prior work (in Dutch).

Objective

By August 2025, we plan to add an evidence-based and validated care path to the Born in Belgium Professionals (BiB) platform. This care path will offer support for pregnant women and new mothers, along with their families. It is for those facing pregnancy loss or perinatal loss in the Flemish healthcare system. Additionally, it will guide healthcare providers to the appropriate care and promote better interprofessional collaboration.

Research approach

The research project is divided into three work packages, each with a specific focus.

  • Work Package 1: A preliminary literature review on the care and support available for pregnancy and perinatal loss, both nationally and internationally. Complemented by an inventory of best practices via the Social Map of Flanders and the snowball method. The collected information will be clustered and presented to experts in Work Package 2.
  • Work Package 2: Focuses on developing the care path using ‘Design Thinking.’ Stakeholders will be involved from the outset to understand, develop, and test the care path. The final result will be a visual guide. It will show the care provided for different stages of pregnancy and perinatal loss.
  • Work Package 3: Involves integrating the care path into the BiB application, considering both technical aspects and user-friendliness. This process uses rapid application development methodology and includes consultations with Social Map Flanders. The Social Map Flanders is a key database for the BiB web application. It is important to align its categories. This will help ensure that the right field actors show up in the care path. 

Expected output

The final result of this project will be a care path. This path will help pregnant women and new mothers. It will support those facing pregnancy or perinatal loss. The goal is to connect them with the right help in the Flemish healthcare system. 

This care path will align with other care paths in the BiB application and will be available digitally. It will generate tailored recommendations to create a customized trajectory for the pregnant woman/mother. The newly integrated care path will automatically be available to all users and disseminated accordingly. 

Additionally, users will be informed via the Born in Belgium Professionals website and a newsletter.

Researchers

Contact

Are you a healthcare provider or parent interested in contributing to this research? 
Contact Maëlle De Coninck at maelle.deconick@kdg.be

Want to know more, collaborate or have a press enquiry?

You can collaborate with our research centre Care in Connection on topics such as:

  • Knowledge and expertise in various fields, from birth to care for the elderly.
  • Innovative methods to improve healthcare practices for patients and providers.

Contact us without obligation