To think this is an inhumane way to treat bereaved parents.

[Chocolatepeanuts]

It has just been announced that from January 2019 paediatric post mortems will no longer be held in Northern Ireland. Instead, parents who are already experiencing the horror of a still birth or loss of a child will have to decide between refusing a pm or choosing for the remains to be shipped or flown to Liverpool. In the case of the coroner deciding a pm is required there will be no choice.

AIBU in thinking this is utterly horrific? I cant imagine the pain of losing a child, its my worst nightmare, but to have that compounded by either letting the remains of my precious child travel to England alone, for god knows how long, or to travel with them while leaving their siblings behind at such a devastating time is just beyond my comprehension.

Oh and the health board are considering introducing an app so you can track the progress of the remains like a fucking amazon parcel.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46195619#

How many paediatric post mortems are carried out in N.I.?
Is it any different than having it carried out 2 hours drive down the road?

Well walking dead belfast is an hour and a half from me, dublin 2 hours. I hope never to imagine but i imagine it would utterly and completely different!!!!! And i dont care of it is one child or 1000 children. 1 is one too many imo.

Its barbaric for our women to have to travel for terminations, but imo this is a whole other league.

*never to know

How awful to imagine your baby cold and lonely packaged up like a parcel

The babies will not be packaged up like a parcel. Speaking as someone who's babies had to travel some distance after they died I can say they were treated with respect and dignity throughout. Language like this helps nobody and is actually really upsetting. There are issues here, but sadly they can't be helped at the moment.

As a parent who has lost a baby during childbirth in Northern Ireland I cannot even describe how distressing this news is to me. The trusts were warned about this shortage in advance but left it too late to recruit a suitable pathologist, sending your baby away for a PM is so so heartbreaking as it is but there is some solace in the fact they are taken by the funeral director who you know and know will take care of them on the journey and return them to you within a few hours, the thought of sending your precious baby off alone for at least a week across the sea is unthinkable. This will result in so much distress for people who are already going through the most painful and devastating experience imaginable. I am sure it will cause parents to decline PMs which in turn will have a lasting impact on their decisions to have more children or the care their babies receive during or after pregnancy if mothers do fall pregnant again after a loss. It is an absolute disgrace and my whole heart goes out to anyone that is affected by this in the future

Couldn’t the pathologist be sent to NI from England to do the PM if one was necessary, instead of the poor baby being transported? How unbelievably cruel and insensitive

As someone whose newborn died not long after she was born, I think you are so numb at this stage that you feel completely bereft and either can’t bear the thought of your baby being cut up or else you desperately want the results of the post mortem to know that you really didn’t do anything wrong that the shipping aspect won’t be the primary focus.

Generally the post mortems don’t take place in the hospital your baby died anyway, so an element of travelling is required regardless. Here in England it’s standard to give you matching teddy bears so you don’t feel that your baby is completely alone.

The tradition of a wake and burial within three days and the fact the post mortem could prevent this is something that would have been far more of an issue for me. Can I ask what currently happens? Are post mortems very quick, even if the Coroner is involved?

Just to add that when my baby went for a post mortem she was gone for almost a month.

Yes post mortems here are very quick, baby was taken to Belfast in the morning and returned to us in the afternoon and that was with involvement from the coroner but it is standard from what other bereaved mothers have told me. We were then able to spend some time with her before the funeral - the time you have with your babies is cruelly short and anything that lengthens this is just awful. Also 1 in 200 babies are still born or pass away shortly after birth and although not all of these babies have a PM sadly there are more families affected by this than you might think. X

It’s a month short of a year since we had to decide if we wanted our precious baby to have a post mortem or not. We decided not to but there was so much comfort knowing that the procedure would happen in our local hospital where our baby had already been born asleep. I remember actually asking where it would be done. I don’t think I could have coped with my beautiful, tiny baby been wrapped up in a parcel and sent across the sea... what if they didn’t make it back? To be robbed of the burial... this is heart breaking.

@SpottingTheZebras I'm so sorry to hear your post Mortem took so long, I can't imagine how painful that must have been for you.

@TakeMe2Insanity so sorry for your loss.
I was the same I was so upset she had to leave at all even though I knew she would be taken back to me that afternoon. It would have been unbearable to think of my baby being sent to England for who knows how long. This news has upset me so much. It has been almost two years since my daughter passed away and the time we spent with her are the most precious moments of my life to think she would have been sent away alone and not returned for a week if not longer is just completely and utterly awful x

Somewhere and spotting I'm so sorry for your loss. I get what you mean re the funeral director accompanying your baby. In rural NI anyway, unsure of the cities, everyone knows the funeral director, its normally a business that has passed through generations of a family and so most people will have had dealings with them previously, considering they oversee the wake at home. So could almost be considered a family friend or at least an acquaintance, looking after your baby for the short time you cant be with them and bringing them home to.you.

Spotting I'm sorry I dont know the current arrangements, i just know funerals even of babies and young children are carried out within days of death. Adult pms dont take place at weekends.

And take me i cant imagine. I hope I didnt upset by starting this thread, tbh i thought the whole country would be in uproar by now but i have seen very little in the media.

Thank you.

From what I gather it is standard here in England for PM to take several weeks. Everything seems to take so long and I remember it feeling like such awfully prolonged massive hurdles to register the death, for her to come back after the PM, the funeral and then another couple of months for the results to come back. The one thing we could do and were encouraged to do was to spend as much time as we wanted with her afterwards, and we spent 36 hours after her death just cuddling her in a private room in the hospital. As much as I can see the positives for a quick PM and burial, I really needed that cuddling time and would have hated to have lost it.

@Chocolatepeanuts me too, I can't believe this has been allowed to happen and it seems to be pretty low key in the media. Baby loss is very taboo though so maybe that's why? Also someone commented yo the thread asking how many PMs even take place so I'm assuming people don't realise how many families actually access this service in N.I - I suppose until you need it you don't want to think about it.

I agree about the funeral director, I will be forever grateful for the kindness and care he showed to us and our baby during the most difficult days of our lives! X

It says about 200 are done per year.

Consultants in NI are the lowest paid in the UK so it's hard to attract and retain staff.

@SpottingTheZebras I agree we also had 3 days with our baby and I would have hated to lose that time more than anything but thankfully (if that's the right term in the circumstances) we were able to have both a quick PM and time with her. I fear that the new arrangements will cause families here to lose that time and add even more distress when they are already distraught

I’m so glad you also got that time @somewhereovertherainbow18 and I do think that at such an awful time whatever can be done to make things easier for the parents is for the best. I think I was just so numb, in denial and also had no idea anywhere did PM so quickly as all that was ever said to me was about the fact it would take many weeks - and longer still if the Coroner’s Office was involved.

This is such a shame and a burden on already overburdened parents. If there truly is no way of providing this service locally surely it would make more sense for the PM’s to be done in Dublin where children from NI are being cared for routinely. Hopefully that is something that can be put in place as a slightly better option.

good god thats awful, they're really is some horrible business in Ireland.

Northern Ireland, ie the UK, not Ireland.

This is horrific for the families, but it is very hard to recruit into Northern Ireland for lots of professions. Recruiting from within the UK means moving a flight away, it can feel quite unfamiliar etc. I love living here, but I can understand why someone wouldn't want to make the move. Presumably there is a pretty small field of candidates for this job, and it isn't hugely surprising they couldn't fill the vacancy. Hopefully something can be arranged with Dublin - similarly quick traditions there too, so presumably they're used to moving quickly.

to those who've lost children and shared their experiences.

A previous poster suggested a consultant travelling here, i wonder if that has been something that has been discussed by thw powers that be....say a commute 1 day per week, perhaps even on a rota basis. There must be an alternative.
Obviously only if the consultant agreed.

It would be very hard to do one day a week as tragically the workload is unpredictable.

I assume they've gone down the RoI route already.