Growing a Health Baby Project

New in-language culturally adapted ‘Safer Baby Bundle’ resources: addressing high stillbirth rates through co-design.

MCWH has recently participated in co-designing new culturally appropriate pregnancy resources, to help prevent stillbirth in migrant and refugee communities disproportionately impacted by stillbirth. The project to adapt the evidence-based ‘Safer Baby Bundle’ involved developing resources for migrant and refugee communities, but also for first nations communities who are also disproportionately impacted by stillbirth.

Women from some migrant backgrounds, including those from Central and Western Africa (14 per 1,000 births), Central Asia (11.2 per 1,000 births), Southern Asia (9.1 per 1,000 births), and Middle East (8.9 per 1,000 births) have higher rates of stillbirth than women born in Australia (7.7 per 1,000 births).

Stillbirth rates in Australia remain tragically high, with six babies stillborn on average, every day. A suite of sensitively-crafted, in-language resources, called ‘Stronger Bubba Born’ and ‘Growing a Healthy Baby’, have been developed from the evidence-based Safer Baby Bundle to improve maternity care for these communities and contribute to reducing stillbirth rates in Australia by 20 per cent.

It is believed between 20 and 30 per cent of late gestation stillbirths are preventable with better care, however systemic healthcare barriers can prevent important discussions about stillbirth prevention.

These new resources have been developed through extensive community consultation and input from health educators, to ensure the information and illustrations are culturally appropriate and reduce the devastating impact of stillbirth on these communities.

This important work has involved two years of consultation and development, and is an extension of the Safer Baby Bundle created by the Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence (Stillbirth CRE).

Arabic, Dari, Dinka and Karen-speaking communities now have access to important tailored information in the form of a written booklet, summary video and self-paced digital booklet with audio. These resources are now available at the Growing a Healthy Baby website. A network of community groups and health educators from the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health (MCWH) and the Stronger Futures CRE at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) worked with the Stillbirth CRE to develop these in-language resources.

The five key areas covered in these new resources, and the Safer Baby Bundle, include:

  • Supporting women to stop smoking in pregnancy and reduce their exposure to smoke;
  • Improving detection and management of fetal growth restriction;
  • Raising awareness and improving care for women with decreased fetal movements;
  • Education that sleeping on your side from 28 weeks of pregnancy can halve the risk of stillbirth;
  • Improving decision making about the timing of birth for women with risk factors for

Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) board member and Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health board member Dr Nisha Khot said many migrants came from countries where routine pregnancy care, especially in early pregnancy, wasn’t the norm and these resources communicated the reasons for that care.

“In a lot of migrant communities, there’s a sense that bad outcomes can’t be prevented. Women may feel that a stillbirth might be their fault. It’s important to communicate that, no, this is something that can be prevented and these are the ways of preventing it,” Dr Khot said.

“Having this information in a language they can understand, discussed in a culturally sensitive way, can make a difference to the stillbirth rates because women themselves can take the preventative steps that we know work.”

These new resources are available at:

In addition, this latest information has also been translated into 25 languages and is available on the CRE’s Safer Baby website, saferbaby.org.au/, and available with all resources for healthcare professionals at learn.stillbirthcre.org.au/.

This project was developed through collaboration with the Stillbirth Centre for Research Excellence, Curtin University, National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations, Waminda and the Stronger Futures Centre of Research Excellence.

If you would like to read the full joint media release from all our partners as well as information for media and background information, click here.