Advent

Claudia Ravaldi

I am a psychiatrist and a cognitive behavioural psychotherapist. I graduated in medicine from the University of Florence in 1999, qualified as a psychiatrist in 2003, and completed my training in cognitive behavioural therapy at Studi Cognitivi in Milan in 2004. I went on to take a European master's degree in the neuroscience of mood, run jointly by the universities of Maastricht, Bristol, Florence and Tel Aviv, and a master's degree in eating disorders in children and adolescents at the University of Florence. For many years my research focused on eating disorders and mood disorders. In 2006, after our son Lapo was stillborn at full term, my husband and colleague Alfredo Vannacci and I founded CiaoLapo (www.ciaolapo.it), a non-profit association. It was the first organisation in Italy to support parents and families after perinatal loss, to train hospital staff in bereavement care and to raise public awareness of the subject, and its work has brought lasting improvements both in the care families receive and in public understanding. In 2019 we set up the CiaoLapo Foundation, which is devoted to perinatal research and postgraduate training. In 2023 I completed a PhD in Neuroscience at the universities of Florence, Pisa and Siena, with a thesis on perinatal mental health. In 2025 I took a master's degree in the history and craft of children's literature at Roma Tre University. My research and clinical work centre on perinatal psychology, especially perinatal bereavement and pregnancy after loss, as well as perinatal psychotraumatology, mindfulness, and bibliotherapy with picture books and poetry. I have written books and articles on bereavement, pregnancy, parenthood and the first thousand days of life.