7,752 Moments of Support in 2025. And Demand Keeps Growing. Six ways to find care. One mission we can't afford to slow down on.

Who we are

The Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support Centre (PILSC) is a registered charity based in Calgary, Alberta. We support every family impacted by pregnancy, infant and child loss, including infertility and diverse family-building pathways, pregnancy loss at any stage, infant loss, and reproductive loss more broadly, and the life that follows.

When we say pregnancy, infant and child loss, we mean someone's baby. Not a clinical event, not a statistic, a child who was already loved, already named, already part of a family.

We connect and support these families through compassionate, no-cost services, and we educate and advocate for greater awareness of reproductive rights and the need for affirming care. We envision communities where no one faces this kind of loss alone, and where every person touched by it is surrounded by understanding, support, and compassion.

All of our programming is founder- and peer-led by bereaved parents who have lived this loss themselves, and we are the only loss-serving organization in Canada proactively addressing how pregnancy and infant loss affects people in diverse and marginalized communities, including BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities.

Why this matters now

Research estimates that 40% of all conceptions result in loss. For the families left behind, the mental health impact is severe and often invisible. Studies show that 29% of birthing people experience PTSD symptoms one month after a pregnancy loss, 24% experience anxiety, and 11% experience moderate to severe depression, compared to 13% moderate-to-severe anxiety among people who deliver healthy babies. These symptoms frequently persist for three to nine months or longer. Couples who experience a miscarriage are 22% more likely to separate, and couples who experience a stillbirth are 40% more likely to separate, than couples with a successful pregnancy.

Families who have lost a baby or child are often left to navigate their grief with no specialized support at all. Many cannot return to the hospital setting where their loss occurred, and most workplaces, schools, and communities have no framework for acknowledging what they are carrying. Every dollar invested in this work is an investment in preventing the long-term mental health crisis that untreated grief creates, for parents, for their surviving children, and for their relationships.

The need keeps growing

Since our founding in 2018, demand for our services has grown from 150 mental health sessions and 76 families served in our first year, to 7,752 moments of support in 2025 alone. That growth has not slowed, and every year brings more families searching for specialized support that most of the health care system still does not provide. Meeting that growing need depends on a community of partners, both institutional and individual, who are willing to grow with us.

Our story

Karen was due to welcome her first child last year. She and her partner Jeff had designed their baby boy's nursery, installed the car seat, and washed and organized all of his clothes. This was their son, already loved and already waited for, months before he was born. Two days before her due date, Karen woke to an awful stillness. She went to the hospital "just to be safe," and heard the words no parent should ever hear: "There is no heartbeat. Your baby has died." After 15 hours of labour, Karen birthed their son, Adam, silently into the world.

The weeks that followed were some of the darkest of their lives. Karen's milk came in for a baby who did not come home. She isolated herself, terrified of being asked questions she could not answer. Jeff went back to work, where his loss went almost entirely unacknowledged, treated as though it were hers alone to carry rather than a son they had both lost. Neither of them could face returning to a hospital setting for support, so when they were referred to PILSC, a space with no hospital walls, they finally felt able to walk through the door.

At PILSC, Karen and Jeff found a peer support group of parents who understood exactly what they were carrying. They spoke Adam's name, together, as his parents. Both of them accessed counselling, individually and as a couple, rebuilding both their own resilience and their relationship. Karen, who months earlier could not think about a friend's baby shower without panic, was recently able to attend one. It took a comfort box, a seat in a support group, and a full course of counselling for both parents, the same pieces of support a gift today can fund for another family, to get them there. Karen and Jeff's story is not unique. It is the story of thousands of families across Canada who are searching for exactly this kind of specialized, understanding care for the child they lost, and too often cannot find it.

What we do differently

• We support every member of a family touched by loss, including partners, grandparents and siblings, not only the birthing parent.
• We provide ongoing support across every stage of the loss journey: initial grief, trying to conceive, pregnancy after loss, and parenting after loss.
• Our programming is founder- and peer-led by bereaved parents, offered in a warm, community-based setting rather than a clinical one.
• We meet families where they are, in whichever of our programs fits their needs, rather than requiring a single fixed path through grief.

Six ways we show up

1. Professional 1:1 counselling and coaching
2. Support groups
3. Peer mentorship
4. Comfort boxes
5. Community events 
6. Education 

Wherever a family is in their grief, there is a door into PILSC that fits where they're at.

Our 2025 impact

2025 was our greatest year of impact yet. Our 7,752 moments of support included:

• 2,539 counselling and coaching sessions
• 2,148 community engagements, moments where we shared stories and reached people beyond our direct client base
• 1,406 client interactions
• 1,323 support group participants across 11 groups
• 147 comfort boxes sent directly to grieving families
• 112 peer-to-peer mentorship connections made
• 77 warm line conversations

In the fall of 2025, we also opened the doors to a new, larger Centre, built to hold our growing community with more room for connection and a more intentional environment for grief to be witnessed.

Your donation at work

• $100 provides a comfort box, including shipping, directly to a grieving family.
• $180 provides 25 resource packages sent to hospitals, at no cost to them
• $300 three months of peer support, matched with someone who has walked this road. Three months of not carrying it alone.
• $600 5 counselling that meets someone before it becomes harder to carry. Grief eft unsupported, it's linked to lasting anxiety, depression, and trauma that can follow someone for years, into future pregnancies and beyond.
• $1,550 funds a full wraparound package for a family: a comfort box, support group, and a course of counselling sessions for both parents, the same combination of support that helped families like Karen and Jeff's.
• Every dollar donated goes toward keeping our services no-cost, so a family's ability to pay never determines whether they get support.

What we're asking

As demand for specialized bereavement support continues to grow year over year, PILSC needs a community of funders and donors to grow alongside it.

If you're a foundation or family funder, we invite you to partner with us to help build the capacity this growing need requires. If you're an individual donor, your gift, at any amount, becomes real, specific support: a comfort box, a counselling session, a seat in a support group, for a family who cannot access this kind of care anywhere else.

No family should have to face the loss of their baby or child alone. With your support, they won't have to.

Learn more and give at pilsc.org.