Starting in 2026, Three Little Birds is officially a support program of The Cooperative! Announcement coming soon!

 

About us:

Since 2016, Three Little Birds has served as a nest of support for more than 500 families experiencing miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal loss in the Philadelphia and South Jersey region through various volunteer programs and virtual and in-person events. Through this experience, we have identified gaps in perinatal bereavement care both within the healthcare systems and the local community. We have been so fortunate to work with many families, providers, advocates and support groups to identify areas where we can best support families through this difficult experience at no charge to them. 

 

Our Mission:

To ensure fair and equitable access for Southern New Jersey perinatal loss families to services we find valuable that also respect personal, religious, ethnic and spiritual diversity. It is our mission to bridge the gap for perinatal loss families, advocates and professionals by providing empathetic support and resources at the time of loss and in the postpartum period for families experiencing miscarriage, stillbirth or the death of an infant.

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How we help:

Bedside Bereavement Program – When a volunteer is available, they are dispatched to support the family and provider bedside to meet with the family, offer validation, encourage bonding through bathing, grooming, reading to the baby, creating hand and footprints, encouraging family and sibling participation, while capturing the moments on camera. Families are provided 25-40, gently edited, black and white images through a digital gallery to be downloaded, shared or printed. Our recent expansion of our program includes updated printed resources with QR codes to take the user to our website where specific support details are routinely updated, thus reducing the need for printing and the distribution of outdated information. To support providers and patients, we offer our resource package and memory making materials in six languages. We also provide families a gift towards the purchase of a casket, urn, memorial stone or printed photographs.

 

Perinatal Bereavement Training Program – We believe that education + empathy can empower providers in feeling confident in communicating with families through the various stages of grief, how to listen with their ears, eyes and heart, death ritual and memory making considerations for families based on cultural, ethnic, religious and spiritual diversity, options for disposition and financial resources to offset those costs, postpartum support options for lactation management/suppression, postpartum support and how to work directly with Three Little Birds to bridge the gap between hospital discharge and returning to “normal life”. To date, we have trained over 150 professionals and advocates through our virtual training program and in collaboration with the Lost Hopes & Dreams educational program in the State of New Jersey.

 

Postpartum Support Program – No two families experience loss in the same way even if it resulted in the same outcome. For perinatal loss families, the postpartum period is already delicate and then complicated by grief, financial constraints, generational and social influences and other religious and political stigmas still present in today’s social climate. We work closely with qualified postpartum and mental health providers with both professional and personal experience in loss through our virtual program. Additionally, we host three signature events per year in support of Bereaved Mother’s Day, Bereaved Father’s Day and the Wave of Light in honor of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day in October. Continued collaboration with healthcare organizations, providers, advocates and families are critical to the continued development of our nest of support for the diverse families we serve.