A new clinic at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray is giving Utah parents who have lost a pregnancy or infant a dedicated path back toward growing their families, pairing high-risk obstetric care with mental health support in a single setting. The Intermountain Pregnancy After Loss (IPAL) Clinic began seeing patients after completing an extensive certification process, according to KUTV. The clinic focuses on helping women who have experienced pregnancy or infant loss and hope to try again, combining compassionate support, coordinated care and enhanced communication in one clinical setting.
Liz Hernandez, practice manager at Intermountain Health's Pregnancy After Loss Clinic, told the station that the care model keeps mental health central in every patient interaction. Hernandez brings personal experience to the role: she navigated a complicated twin pregnancy that ended in the loss of one twin to sudden unexpected infant death, and later went through pregnancy after loss herself, per KUTV's report. That background informs the clinic's peer-support component, which connects patients with parents who have lived through similar losses, and the certification process behind IPAL requires the involvement of a parent who personally experienced infant loss.
Trauma-Informed Care Built Into Every Visit
All caregivers at the clinic complete trauma-informed training, and staff tailor pregnancy care to the unique needs of expectant mothers, according to the same KUTV account. Jessica Page, an OB-GYN at the clinic, said women experience many questions and anxieties during a pregnancy following a loss. Page added that research breakthroughs have begun providing answers about pregnancy loss and tools to improve patient care, and the clinic uses current research and medical information in treating patients. According to a 2025 review available through the National Institutes of Health, pregnancies following perinatal loss present emotional and clinical challenges that require individualized care.
The clinic also offers support from caregivers to patients who lack family or peer support of their own, filling a gap for parents navigating loss without a built-in network. Roughly 1 in 4 women experience pregnancy loss at some point in their lives, per KUTV's reporting, underscoring how many families the model could eventually reach. According to Utah's Managed Care Program Annual Report, public mental-health plans are addressing a shortage of behavioral-health providers by maintaining open recruitments and offering provider incentives.
A National Network Standardizing Grief-Informed Maternity Care
Intermountain's clinic is one of nine clinics nationwide carrying the USPAL designation, a marker tied to the U.S. Pregnancy After Loss Network launched in 2025 by maternal-fetal medicine leaders at Mount Sinai, Yale University and University of Utah Health, alongside the nonprofits The Natalie Foundation and The Iris Fund, according to the USPAL Network. The network's framework is built on the Rainbow Clinic model first established in 2013 by Professor Alexander Heazell at St. Mary's Hospital at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, as detailed by Tommy's. The first dedicated U.S. version of that model opened in 2022 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, pioneering multidisciplinary care that blends advanced obstetric monitoring with specialized psychological support, per Mount Sinai.
Research from the University of Manchester evaluating the original UK Rainbow Clinic framework found that trauma-informed antenatal care following a loss reduced preterm birth rates by 11% and low birth weight outcomes by 9%, according to the University of Manchester. Utah's IPAL clinic will participate in pregnancy-loss studies aimed at improving maternity care, and it aims to standardize compassionate care and improve patient outcomes across clinics, KUTV reported.
Salt Lake County's Growing Role in Stillbirth Research
Intermountain's new clinic joins an already-established Utah presence in this specialized field. University of Utah Health launched the Utah Pregnancy After Loss (UPAL) Program in Salt Lake City, which serves as a founding member and secretariat of the national USPAL Network, according to University of Utah Health. Utah was also selected by the CDC in 2018 as an initial pilot state for the Study of Associated Risks of Stillbirths, a surveillance initiative gathering data on prenatal care, obstetric complications and postpartum mental health following pregnancy loss, per research indexed on PMC.
Before launching the dedicated loss clinic in Murray, Intermountain Health maintained Angel Watch, a free regional perinatal palliative support program assisting families across Utah, Idaho, Nevada and Arizona facing life-limiting fetal diagnoses, according to Intermountain Health. The new clinic extends that institutional commitment, and it follows Intermountain's announcement in May of plans for the Alta View Behavioral Health Center in Sandy, which includes a dedicated Maternal Mental Health Unit for psychiatric care during pregnancy and up to one year postpartum, as Hoodline previously reported.
The Scale of the Problem Nationally
Stillbirth affects approximately 1 in every 175 births in the United States, claiming about 21,000 infant lives annually, according to the CDC. Pregnancy loss ends more than 20,000 pregnancies in stillbirth each year, per KUTV's reporting, a prevalence nearly equal to total first-year infant mortality nationwide. Even so, CDC vital statistics released in December 2025 showed the U.S. stillbirth rate declined 2% between 2023 and 2024 to 5.41 per 1,000 births, with Utah posting one of the nation's sharpest state-level drops at 16%, according to Drugs.com MedNews.
For families in Murray and across the Salt Lake Valley now facing the prospect of trying again after loss, the IPAL clinic represents an attempt to fold that national research and standardized, grief-informed protocol into everyday care. Between the obstetric monitoring, peer mentors and trauma-informed staff, the goal, as Hernandez and Page described it to KUTV, is to make sure no parent has to navigate that fear and hope alone.
