After a perinatal loss, a new pregnancy is never just a “new pregnancy,” but a complex time filled with conflicting emotions: within us, desire and fear, hope and vigilance, presence …
Claudia Ravaldi
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.
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Perinatal Psychology
Psychological intervention during hospitalization in the case of perinatal bereavement
In this article we talk about how important trauma-oriented psychological intervention is during hospitalization in the case of perinatal bereavement. Unfortunately in our country few hospital settings are equipped to …
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Grief and childrenPerinatal Psychology
Why talk to our children about traumatic events and how to do it
How can we talk to our children about perinatal bereavement (or other traumatic experiences)? A small theoretical framework and some practical ideas to keep trust and honesty at the center …
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I have read so many of your testimonies, in times perhaps not suspicious. I caressed the pain of others, trying not to turn my face in front of what is …
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AssociationPerinatal human rightsPerinatal MedicinePerinatal Psychology
Training course for hospital staff “Memory Box”
If you work in a hospital in the maternal and child area or if you are a student of the degree courses of obstetrics, nursing and medicine, this course, free …
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On the occasion of the month of awareness on pregnancy loss and after birth, we want to bring to everyone’s attention a theme that creates great suffering every year for …
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Thousands of women face an interruption of pregnancy in the first twenty weeks of gestation for pre-existing health reasons or for serious risks related to the continuation of pregnancy (as …
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What is the point of silencing women who have experienced perinatal bereavement? To keep this taboo alive, to make them feel isolated, wrong, and different. Women who have experienced miscarriage …
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A new document on managing pregnancies following a perinatal loss—so-called “rainbow pregnancies”—is finally available.
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Miscarriage is an extremely common occurrence in women of childbearing age but it is something that is not easily talked about. Or rather, it’s something you don’t want to hear.
