A Public Health Emergency That Touches Every Kind of Family.
The United States has the highest rate of maternal and infant mortality among high-income countries.
In the United States, more than 21,000 babies are stillborn every year. Thousands more die in their first weeks of life. Countless families face miscarriage — one in four pregnancies — or receive a devastating diagnosis that leads to the heartbreak of termination for medical reasons. Each of these losses is profound. Each one changes a family forever.
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What Families Are Facing
The Grief No One Prepares You For
When a baby dies, the grief that follows can affect every part of a person’s life. Parents describe feelings of deep sorrow, shock, numbness, guilt, anger, and fear — emotions that are intense, confusing, and often frightening. Grief touches not just the heart but the whole body, and it can affect relationships, the ability to work, the capacity to parent other children, and a person’s sense of self.
What makes this grief especially isolating is that our culture does not know how to hold it. Friends and family often do not know what to say. Workplaces expect a quick return. And the healthcare system too often sends families home without the support they urgently need.
The Barriers Are Real
- Inability to return to work due to unresolved grief, anxiety, and PTSD
- Difficulty parenting surviving or subsequent children while carrying unprocessed loss
- Medical debt from NICU stays, deliveries, and end-of-life care that can follow a family for years
- Social stigma — particularly around stillbirth and termination for medical reasons — that pushes grief underground
- A critical shortage of mental health providers trained in perinatal grief and loss
- Long wait times, inadequate insurance coverage, and in rural areas, near-total absence of specialized care
The Evidence
What the Research Shows
1 in 4
Pregnancies ends in miscarriage
21,000+
Stillbirths in the United States each year
2–3x
More likely — Black women face higher rates of pregnancy-related death than white women
Bereaved parents face significantly elevated risk of PTSD, depression, and complicated grief — conditions that, when untreated, affect every area of their lives
Access to community-based grief support is one of the strongest predictors of long-term recovery after infant loss
Partners, grandparents, and siblings grieve deeply too — and they are frequently overlooked by existing support systems
Equity, Access, and the Local Gap
Equity Is Central to Everything We Do
We recognize that infant and pregnancy loss does not affect all families equally. Black, Indigenous, and other families of color face significantly higher rates of stillbirth and infant death in the United States. Equity in access to grief support is central to everything we do.
The Black-to-white stillbirth rate ratio has not narrowed in more than seventy years. This is not a coincidence. It is the outcome of systemic inequity in healthcare access and quality — and it demands a direct, community-rooted response.
Why Western North Carolina
Local Need. Community-Led Solutions.
Western North Carolina is a resilient, beautiful region that is also medically underserved. Hospital closures, insurance gaps, and provider shortages mean that many families here have nowhere to turn after a loss.
Embrace Foundation exists to fill that gap — not as an outside organization parachuting in, but as a community built from within, by families who have lived this grief and refused to let others face it alone.
Our Approach
Our response to this crisis is grounded in three foundational commitments that guide every program, every gathering, and every interaction we have with bereaved families.
Our Approach
Trauma-Informed
Safety, choice, and compassion guide every interaction. We understand that grief affects the whole person — emotionally, physically, and relationally. We meet families where they are, not where we think they should be.
Our Approach
Grief-Literate
Grief is not a problem to be solved. It does not follow a straight path, a set of stages, or a timeline. We honor every family’s way of grieving — and we hold space for grief that changes and evolves over time.
Our Approach
Community-Rooted
Built by and for Western North Carolina families, our work is grounded in lived experience. The people closest to this loss are the ones who know best what families need — and they are at the center of everything we build.
You Are Not Alone
No family should have to navigate this alone.
Our aim is to provide trauma-informed emotional support, therapeutic resources, and remembrance opportunities for families navigating perinatal loss, birth trauma, and the unexpected death of an infant.