19. Hyperemesis and Fetal Anomaly Termination with Paola Brass, Clinical Social Worker

My guest on Episode 19 is Paola Brass. She is a Clinical Social Worker who works as a Child Advocate at Stuart House, a program of the UCLA Rape Treatment Center in Santa Monica. Paola works with children and their families to provide crisis intervention, case management, advocacy, and court-related services for children who are victims of sexual abuse. Paola also participates in The Rape Treatment Center’s 24-hour on-call-response services for suspected victims of assault/abuse as a crisis counselor. Prior to coming to Stuart House, Paola investigated child abuse for 8 years with the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) as an Emergency Response Social Worker. While working with DCFS Paola had the opportunity to work closely with Stuart house, she found passion in the work she was doing with sexual abuse survivors and decided to pursue the role of a child advocate. After 9 plus years of clinical experience in supporting families during traumatic events Paola was able to recognize the need to obtain specialized treatment and support after experiencing a traumatic pregnancy and termination for fetal anomaly. Paola’s medical team had failed to diagnose Hyperemesis and failed to provide adequate support leaving Paola feeling very isolated. Paola was able to seek treatment and support to help her grieve, process, and heal from her traumatic pregnancy and loss, and in turn was able to continue to provide the highest level of care to her families as a clinician. She went on to have another pregnancy, again with the diagnosis of hyperemesis, and brought her daughter to term. Paola is bravely sharing her reproductive story and helping many listeners who may be going through the same or similar diagnosis. Additionally she and her husband both developed a diagnosis of postpartum and sought professional treatment to help normalize and de-stigmatize the most common mental health complication of pregnancy.

Paola's IG: @itspaola

Paola's Email: [email protected]

She referenced the website www.HelpHer.org

And, Mother's Haven in Encino, California