A charity which has been supporting women who have had a miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy or any other birth trauma now has more counsellors and can give more support.

This year marks 25 years since Huddersfield-based Talkthru was set up and over the last year it has increased the number of counsellors to 11 to help almost 100 women from the Kirklees and Calderdale areas.

One in four pregnancies end in miscarriage with one in 80 in ectopic pregnancies. Generally, women aren’t offered any support until they’ve had three miscarriages but a significant number of women suffer from anxiety, depression and PTSD following miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy and need help.

Talkthru centre manager Nicola Chester said: “These are quite shocking numbers and we had 120 women approach us for help last year with 96 going on to receive counselling care. Anyone who has been through this kind of trauma needs someone who can listen, understand and show support.”

The charity now has two specialist support groups to give women the chance to talk and share their experiences and intends to train leaders of community groups such as mother and baby or toddler groups so they can give initial support to women who talk about a birth trauma or loss and then refer them on to Talkthru for more specialist help.

Talkthru helps women experiencing bereavement, trauma or loss related to pregnancy, including miscarriage, death or stillbirth, termination (including termination for foetal abnormalities), baby loss and birth trauma. It also provides counselling for unplanned pregnancies and helps women whose children may have been taken into care.

Nicola added: “We have a committed team of volunteers who deliver hundreds of counselling sessions each year. All our counsellors are specialists in this field and are registered with an appropriate counselling membership organisation. Between us, we have years of experience providing counselling for all types of pregnancy and baby loss.”

Two of the counsellors have Masters degrees in Psychotherapy and the charity is always needing more volunteer counsellors.

Talkthru provides counselling face-to-face, over the internet or by phone and women can self-refer themselves to the service through its website.

Nicola said: “It’s important anyone can access the service anytime from anywhere. Some of the women may have very young children and find it impossible to get into Huddersfield to see us face-to-face.

“We are now looking to connect with organisations in the community such as mother and baby or toddler groups – anyone where people who may have suffered a birth trauma or loss attend – to train their staff in how to have a conversation with someone who starts talking about their experiences.”

The charity now has two courses designed by Talkthru’s team of specialist counsellors for groups of up to six women in each and they run for six weeks.

One is called Your Loss Matters for women who have gone through miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy and aims to “navigate the emotions that come with this profound loss and find a path toward healing.” The next group starts on Tuesday, November 5.

The other is called Your Birth Story Matters and is a birth trauma support group as up to 30% of people may experience a difficult birth and one in 20 have birth trauma which can leave parents suffering with mental and physical pain, affecting their relationships with their partners and children.

Project lead Laura Stimpson said: “We know it can be difficult to make that first step in accessing support but we want to reassure anyone who is considering getting in touch that we genuinely care about you, want to support you and will do everything we can to ensure you feel as comfortable as possible.

“Each course will be unique and reflect the needs of our group members. There are no expectations for people to share their story unless they want to. Group leaders will join in with all of the activities too which supports our ethos of a true group session focusing on togetherness.”

To find out more about Talkthru go to the website www.talkthru.org.uk, email office@talkthru.org.uk or phone 01484 515137.

Written by ANDY HIRST who runs his own Yorkshire freelance journalism agency AH! PR (https://ah-pr.com/) specialising in press releases, blogging, website content, copywriting and ghost-writing autobiographies.