EP3: Hope, Advocacy, and Healing: Social Work in Fetal Care
Hope, Advocacy, and Healing.
When a pregnancy turns into a frightening diagnosis, fetal social workers are there — providing support, advocacy, and connection to critical resources. Beth Moorhouse — a social worker specializing in fetal and perinatal care — joins host Kris Rimbos to unpack the role: building trust in minutes, advocating for access, holding space for impossible decisions without judgment, and supporting families through grief, mental health, and the long road home. An inside look at this critical role — providing hope even with uncertainty, and helping families move forward while feeling seen, heard, and supported.
The episode in five numbers
Meet the voices
Tap either card to flip for a full bio.
Host
Tap to flip
Kris Rimbos, MS, RNC-OB, C-EFM, NE-BC, FAWHONN
Host of The Fetal Frontline and a long-standing FTNN board member. Kris helped build FTNN's web presence and social channels, served as Membership and Publications Chair, and spent her career in women and infant services, including at a major US fetal center.
Across this season of The Fetal Frontline, she sits down with the clinicians behind fetal care — nurses, social workers, and the wider team — drawing out the day-to-day realities of a specialty most listeners have never seen up close.
Guest · Perinatal Social Worker
Tap to flip
Beth Moorhouse, MSW, LCSW, PMH-C
Since earning her graduate degree in social work, Beth has worked in hospital social work and private clinical practice, with a career-long focus on maternal-child health — the NICU, PICU, maternal-fetal medicine, labor & delivery, and postpartum care.
What she loves about fetal care is that it joins the two paths she's most passionate about: the medical care a family receives in the perinatal period and perinatal mental health. She helped launch a fetal-diagnosis support group with Postpartum Support International — an online community where parents from any state, even internationally, can share coping strategies with people who truly understand.
What makes social work in fetal care unlike any other role
Some grounding before the day-to-day. Four truths about the role that shape everything Beth describes.
Hope, even in the uncertainty.
Beth's first move with a frightened family is to be genuine — curious about their hopes, their family, their perspective — and to meet them where they are. Even without all the answers, she tells them: "we'll walk with them through this path… and give them that hope that even with the uncertainty, we'll move forward and support them."
Chapter guide
Fourteen chapters, each with a pull-quote and the three things worth walking away with. Tap "Open deep dive" to unpack the context — what perinatal mood disorders are, what TFMR means, how Postpartum Support International fits in.
A family's journey alongside social work
From the acute first visit to care that continues long after — the seven points where Beth and the team walk beside a family.
The team around the family
Beth names a wide circle of colleagues — and social work sits among them, holding the family's whole story and connecting them to the right person at the right moment.
Four pillars of the social work role
Straight from the episode's title — hope, advocacy, and healing. Tap through the four things Beth carries for every family.
Where social work begins — a genuine, curious assessment, built fast at a very acute moment in a family's care.
Giving families a voice — and clearing the practical barriers between them and the care they need.
Keeping a dozen specialties — and one message — aligned, even when the day doesn't go to plan.
The long arc of the work — grief, mental health, and the memories that endure.
The social worker's playbook
"Meet them where they are."
The principle under everything Beth does. When a serious diagnosis lands, her first move isn't clinical — it's to be genuine, stay curious about the family's hopes and dynamics, and walk alongside them in that space.
Making space for what restores her
Beth's self-care is deliberate. Time with friends and family, good meals, reading, being outside and on the water, and travel — she guards her sleep and her fun fiercely, so she can return ready to listen with as much compassion and energy as she can offer the next family.
Reflections from the field
Four threads from the close of the conversation — what's misunderstood, what's at stake, and what Beth hopes you carry forward.
What people — even other professionals — misunderstand about social work in fetal care. The role is different setting to setting, and that preconception can follow Beth into the room.
Setting the record straight
- In hospitals, social work is often tied to child abuse and neglect cases
- So some families arrive wary of meeting a social worker at all
- Here, the role is support, advocacy and non-judgment — full stop
- She'd love colleagues to help convey that to the families they share
Perinatal mood disorders can affect anyone — with a history or without — which is exactly why Beth educates every family.
The moments that remind Beth why this work matters.
If listeners take away one thing about social work in fetal care.
Walking beside them, the whole way
Social work's thread runs from the first acute visit through advocacy, grief, mental health, and the long arc of healing. Beth's throughline is presence — a steady, non-judgmental companion, so no family has to walk the hardest stretch of their pregnancy alone.
Thanks for listening.
If this episode moved you, share it with a colleague. Subscribe so you don't miss the next conversation on The Fetal Frontline — and learn more about the Fetal Therapy Nurse Network and the people and roles that make fetal care whole.
Chapter
How to subscribe
The FTNN Podcast publishes episodes roughly every month. You can subscribe wherever you listen:
- Apple Podcasts — search "The Fetal Frontline"
- Spotify — search "Fetal Therapy Nurse Network"
- Amazon Music & YouTube — direct RSS feed coming soon
Reviews genuinely help others discover the show — if this episode resonated, leave one. And if you'd like to suggest a future guest or topic, reach out via the FTNN website.
