Tracing stillborn babies - feeling stunned

[Nubnut]

I just read an article about how until the 1990s stillborn babies were often taken away from their parents without them seeing them: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/28/you-dont-forget-as-a-mother-the-british-parents-finally-reunited-with-their-stillborn-babies

I knew this already having listened once to an interview with an elderly woman who was just sent home with some drugs to stop the milk and told to move on. I remember listening to the interview and having to sit down on the floor because of the idea of it. I have not experienced it myself but it is something everyone can partly understand, and I think it is an issue that concerns us all.

I find it really hard to understand how and why this could have happened. Especially because it is not a classic case of it being a men's world and not thinking through the experiences of women, because in this case, we're talking about maternity wards staffed by a majority of women. How could this be allowed to happen?

My heart is breaking for these parents.

Does anyone who has any experience of the sector have any more thoughts about why this happened? I feel so stunned and I would like to understand more.

This is comforting to hear. I'm so sorry for the loss of your baby daughter.

This might be of interest, the story of one midwife who had a stillbirth and introduced changes as a result.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001y289?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

@triballeader 💐💐💐
Social change for the better is almost always from the bottom up by people who go against the tide. That's an incredible story. Thank you.

My friend’s mum gave birth at home to a stillborn boy. She didn’t hold him, she had no idea what happened to him. Apparently the midwife told her he was too good for this world she could have more children…… Unbelievably cruel. This was in the late 50s. I didn’t know this story for several years but I always thought my friend’s mum had an air of distant sadness about her if that makes sense.
Know of two other similarly awful events in the 70s and 90s but don’t want to upset anyone further. I really hope care of the mothers ( and fathers) has moved on hugely.

@DearestGentleReader I’m sorry for your loss but glad you and your baby were treated so gently and carefully.

@triballeader you and the midwife are also heroes. Thank you on behalf of everyone for being a part of this change <3

Of coursexa woman can be knighted. They are made Dames.

Almost exactly the same happened to my grandma in 1950. First baby, born at home, undiagnosed breech and died during delivery. She was told she could have another one next year. Didn't get to see him or give him a name. People would cross the street to avoid talking to her about it. I expect most of them genuinely thought they were doing the right thing.

She did go on to have 3 more sons but she never forgot. In fact much later in life she trained as a counsellor and it was that which allowed her you explore her own grief, name her baby and mourn him properly.

My BiL&SiL had a stillbirth 3 years ago and, while still devastating, the experience couldn't have been more different.

I had an uncle - my mother’s brother was stillborn (late 1930s / early 1940s). We have no idea where he was born, or even when - my mother was too young to remember and it was NEVER talked about. She will not give the consent needed fir a records check, out of respect to the wishes of my grandparents.

My second was a stillborn (died during the scan because I was overdue) and I gave birth to her at 3.08am. She was whisked away and I was left covered in blood, hearing other women give birth to crying (live) babies. The next morning around 8am someone, no idea if a midwife or hca or kitchen staff, came in and asked if I wanted a cup of tea or a shower. I asked about my baby - whether they knew if she had all her fingers and toes, whether she had any hair and what colour etc. They went off and got someone who asked if I wanted to see her. H said no... and they turned to leave. I sobbed out yes, yes, yes and they eventually brought her.

So if I hadn't asked about her hair I wouldn't have seen or held her.
If H had been asked outside the room I wouldn't have seen or held her.

This was October 1998.

My Mum was born mid 1940s and there was still a lot of stigma around aspects of life such as getting divorced, stillbirths. I think I was a teenager when I discovered some old paperwork of my Mum's in a cupboard. It had a marriage certificate, divorce papers and a little card from the hospital which said 'baby Jones stillborn' (my Mum's apparent surname from her first husband) along with a DOB. My Mum has never spoken of being married before she met my Dad or of having had a stillborn baby.

Still the case in 2020 - most hospitals do not have the room to have separate facilities. Ours has a separate birth room and postnatal room for parents birthing a deceased child/who's baby died during delivery but do not have any separate scan facilities.

That happened to me about 5 years ago!

@VestibuleVirgin You think a woman can be knighted

THIS is the comment you wanted to make on such an emotional thread?

I'm a total pedant but even I wouldn't do this. Jeez. Read the room.

@triballeader I think I might know who you are and just to say thank you for all the good you have done. Your efforts, and the efforts of hundreds of other fundraisers and campaigners, has brought compassion, care and healing to more people than you can know.
Thank you.

Yeah, really inappropriate. That poster does it all the time.

I did my nurse training in the 80's. I can remember clearly how women were treated after a still birth and can recall three individual cases.
All the women were given a side room and their baby stayed with them for as long as they wanted. They were treated with respect and compassion and I can remember being asked by the sister in charge to sit in with a newly bereaved mother through the night for as long as she wanted.

This was not my experience in the early 1980s when my son was stillborn, having died during the delivery due to placental insufficiency.
DH and I were able to hold him and look at him and in fact he was left with us for a while.
We were also told we could could arrange his burial if we wanted (we did) and we had a small service for him at the graveside. It wasn't a funeral as such and he was buried in a communal plot which held other stillborn babies. The funeral directors provided a small white coffin and made no charge for their services.
People were very kind, the only thing I wish we could have had is a photo of our baby. That certainly wasn't 'done' at the time but I think it is now. I still have an image of him in my head.

I know it’s not the same, but after I had complications from a tfmr for a very wanted baby, I was put on a ward with pregnant women. It was awful. The woman opposite me had hyperemesis, obviously awful for her, but watching a pregnant woman being sick was the last thing I needed. This wasn’t that long ago either.

Not just 8 years ago... today... happened to me personally and I know for a fact I'm not the only one.

My mum had a stillbirth in the 70s. She was taken from my mum without so much as a glance. No funeral either it wasn't an option. 40 odd years later we know where she is buried, another baby was buried in her plot a few years later and that baby has a headstone, we are not allowed a headstone for our sister apparently.

I haven’t had a still birth but several miscarriages, and when my youngest was born and seriously ill in NICU they still put me in a ward with mothers who had their babies with them. It was awful. I can’t imaging how much worse it must have been for these families not even being able to see your baby and not knowing when/where/how to mark the loss.

I am so so heartbroken reading this. I had a little cry. BUT I am so happy they have been able to trace these babies finally. Paula Jackson is an incredible person, doing some really admirable work.

recently was having a miscarriage and put into a room just off another scanning room. Could literally hear the heartbeat of the next persons baby through the wall.

and the waiting area for recurrent miscarriage clinic? Shared with gestational diabetes clinic. Ffs.

I had a very late mc in 1980 at 20 weeks. I was put in the antenatal ward and afterwards transferred to the postnatal ward.
It was brutal.
The registrar obstetrician asked me what had I done to get rid of my baby, he was so nasty.
I wish I had made a complaint but I was too traumatised.

My daughter died in 2007 (she wasn't stillborn, she was in NICU for 2 weeks).

I was put onto a ward with other women and their babies.

Every time I pumped milk the midwife put the curtain around me for the comfort of the other women.

I was shouted at for buzzing to get back into the ward after visiting my little girl in the night because I was disturbing other mums.

When she was getting her ventilator removed, my options were to have a 10 minute window with no other parents in the NICU and a curtain around us, other parents would be let in after 10 minutes, or to make a space in a storage cupboard so I could spend more time with her, that's where my precious daughter died, in a cupboard.

I asked for something to stop my milk supply and was basically told to get on with it.

When I went to pick up the paperwork one of the nurses who looked after her then decided to cry on me, to the point I was apologising, because my daughters death brought back trauma from her child's death.

It was absolutely brutal, and I really hope things have improved.

My husband's aunt had a stillborn baby in the late 60's. She didn't see her baby and doesn't know whether it was a boy or a girl. The baby was just taken away and she was told they were sure it would be different next time.