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.

@triballeader My son was stillborn in 1999, with very short arms, and a huge fontanelle, basically no skull on top. I was able to pick a lovely outfit for him from a selection of hand-made clothes. I chose a white gown with green smocking across the chest and little puff sleeves, plus a white hand-knitted bonnet.

A lot of love and work had gone into that gown and bonnet. The person, or people, who made those two items will never know just how perfect they were and how much I appreciated them.

Thank you.

@IfYoureHappyAndYouKnowItHaveAGin I am so so sorry that you and your daughter had to go through that.

To all the bereaved mums, sisters, aunts and family members on this thread - I am sorry for your losses.

@triballeader I’ve rarely read anything that has made me tear up so much. What a woman you are. Your username is perfect!

I had a miscarriage at 16 weeks actually I didn’t miscarry but bed a d and c et. and after my operation was put on the delivery ward so I woke up surrounded by women who had babies - this was 2003 ish. It made a horrific process much worse

My mother had a still birth in the early 1940s, having lost her three year old daughter from TB, several months earlier. It was a home birth and my father took the baby in a shoe box to the lodge at the cemetary, as was the custom in Ireland at that time so that the child could be buried with an adult scheduled to be buried at that time.

I trained in the late 1970s, and the attitude was still, amongst some staff of stiff upper lip but as an earlier poster has said, this was very much a remnant of post WWII attitudes and although it may been seen now as quite cruel, those were the women you would want with you in an emergency.

My mam always said they just took my older brother and threw him in a biological medical waste bin.

There's a memorial garden at the hospital now where they put plaques for lost babies if parents request one. Its only been around since 1999 but there are plaques with birth dates from back in the 1950s in there and the annual memorial ceremony where messages are read of from mothers to the lost babies is mostly attended by old ladies (60+).

Although part of the age of attendies maybe that younger women like myself who have gone on to have more small children can't attend as easily with young kids (a small few bring babies but other don't want to risk hurting other women its kind of a minefield).

I could have written this, exactly the same thing happened to me and I’ll never forget it. I’m so sorry you experienced the same @Unrefridgerated .

Mum had a stillborn baby boy in the 50s .He was whisked away and she was told to go home and try again.No counselling or anything .She had me later and had bad poet natal depression ,due largely to the trauma

I'm so sorry 😔 @Pixiedust1234 and all the others who have been through these times.

My firstborn son was stillborn at just under 24 weeks in 2005. My DP was clearly traumatised from the birth and I had him taken to be cleaned up and etc. My DP went home and I was stuck waiting for him for hours to return because midwives were too busy to dress him etc. I was very poorly myself so bed bound. They brought him back and had taken 3 Polaroids (kind of blurry) and put him in a little Moses basket. He'd been dressed in a little romper that was handmade and I will always be grateful to those who make clothes for our babies.
I was on the labour ward which was also HDU so I heard mothers giving birth constantly. They reassured me that I could go to the bereavement suite to be with bereavement midwives and my baby once I was better, but that was a Saturday and bereavement suite didn't open on Saturdays. So I went to a side room in a maternity ward (with its own loo outside just for me) and was still kept awake by crying babies and an inconsiderate woman who was using my loo repeatedly and making all sorts of snorting sounds in there. The next day I begged to go home. That was all the bereavement support I had. Because I was a day off 24 weeks I got the leaflet about miscarriages too which was completely inappropriate for the situation. Many medical staff came into my room in HDU with my baby there in the little basket and didn't realise he'd died - one asked me if he'd slept well for me!
So in 2005 it was a little better but still nowhere near ok.

Yes, I had a MMC (after years of infertility) in 2015 and had to have pill induction. We had to walk through the maternity ward to get to the 'women's ward' there was no other enterance (medical management was also same ward they kept women who had to have medical hysterectomies on too, may also be where they held abortions although I'm not certain)... always seemed so insensitive like rubbing our faces in it.

With a whole hospital available just put the 'women's ward' somewhere, ANYWHERE else.

I had to have my first pregnancy terminated at twenty weeks because the baby had multiple disabilities incompatible with life.

Nobody told me that a termination actually meant going through labour and that I would have the associated physical impacts, bleeding, milk coming in etc.

A young doctor came round during my 36 hour labour and said I should go back to work the following week.

My GP told me not to discuss it with anyone.

I was left alone until the very end and was asked if I wanted to see the baby. Husband said no and they didn't even tell me the sex.

A week later the visiting midwife said there were photos if I'd like to see them. She then rang to say she'd seen them and wouldn't recommend it. I went anyway and was shut in a room alone with an envelope.

They hadn't even washed the blood off him, he was lying on a stained hospital gown.

Six weeks later we had to go for genetic counselling/post mortem results. They actually told me my baby's body had been sent to a London hospital by motorbike courier and was incinerated after the PM.

I also became involved with SANDS.

This was 1992

My Grandma lost her first baby a couple of weeks after he was born in the late 1930,s ,they were able to have a funeral for him
But the Dr did tell my Grandad ,that she my Grandma needed another baby as soon as possible, my uncle was born 14 months later .

In the early 60's my Mum gave birth to my sister. She always maintained she was alive at birth, but had been strangled by the cord. My sister was whisked away and Mum never saw her again.

As was normal for the time sadly, she was taken by the hospital and passed over to the undertaker for our area where she was put into a baby grave with other stillborn babies. No marker, no idea where and nowhere for Mum to mourn the loss of her daughter.

I didn't find out about my big sister until I was much older. She would have been nearly 20 years older than me had she lived. Mum often talked about not knowing and how it played on her mind.
In the early 2000's I started to research and amazingly managed to find both records and plot where she was taken. By great coincidence my Uncle, Mums brother, worked for the local parks department at the time so knew exactly where the plot was. We found her, just a plot of green grass under a beautiful tree.

Mum set about having a small grave pot made with her date of birth on it and we placed it under the tree. To the day she died she visited the grave. It gave her a lot of peace. Over the years a few more little grave markers appeared in the area as other Mothers found their children. Today there are around a dozen, it's both touching and infuriating that this ever happened.

My mother lost babies in the early 70's

She will tell you that they where miscarriages,but they where actually stillbirths

She was put on a ward with other pregnant mums,was made to give birth and they whisked the baby away without her seeing them,before shoving her back onto the postnatal ward for 10 days to recover

She claims not to know what sex they where
She also doesn't know where their bodies ended up

(She's a narc,I'm the scapegoat and she claimed she doesn't remember my birthday-now she claims I don't exist at all so God knows how true all this is-going by other ladies stories,most of it is true)

I remember having miscarriages myself and was left in the antenatal ward,by myself while other pregnant ladies where waiting for their scans-2006 and again in 2009

Hopefully things have changed

A few pieces of information that might help understand why things happened in the past. Currently stillborn babies born after 24 weeks will have a birth & death certificate and must have a burial or cremation, this age limit was 28 weeks until 1992. Prior to these cut off points you can choose an individual cremation/burial or the hospital manages it for you. Remember 14 weeks is quite different to 23 weeks and everyone is different in feelings on this.

My good friend used to a midwife with extra training in bereavement, not all still born babies are really suitable to be seen by the parents, if she tells people that's it's kinder not to see or just reveal a foot for instance it's for very good reason, babies may have died a bit before don't forget.

There's no good outcomes here, but compassion is better now thankfully. Every year at the all souls memorial service I add "all the babies born too soon to have a name" to the list which is much appreciated, I see a little tear in many older ladies' eyes.

My close friend had a still birth at full term mid 1980s. She got to hold her baby and and was given an instant photo to take home. Baby was put in a grave with a stranger, no marking but were told which grave. Surprised that things were so bad elsewhere 10 years later. Medical negligence, but did not complain as were told lessons would be learned. Today still same thing happening, so sad.

I think this is one of the ways that the internet and social media have had a massive cultural effect. People can connect with others and discuss shared experience without the barriers of distance, generation, class, etc. And things could be typed that were unsayable.

In the past, your circle of friends and acquaintances was much smaller, and even if you knew someone who had suffered a similar loss it wasn’t an easy thing to just bring up in conversation- you had no idea where they were in the grief process. It’s part of the reason why funerals and religious ceremonies are so important - not just for the bereft, but also for those who have lost someone before.

It took so much courage, fortitude and mental strength to walk against the prevailing attitudes and speak out. What amazes me is how often those marginalised voices in the past, have been vindicated since, once people had the capacity to directly publish their own views.

My Nana had a baby in 1959. She had ancephaly and only lived for thirty minutes and her name was Caroline. It struck me that after my dad died, the only person who knew about Caroline was me and the thought of her being forgotten really upset me. I managed to find her death certificate and I’m still working out where she was buried/cremated.

My dad always told me that til the day she died, my Nana yearned for a little girl with red hair. I was born after my Nana died, but I have red hair and so does my cousin and my daughter. So she got three of us in the end.

Do I?
Judging by the thanks I have on posts, not everyone agrees I do it "all the time"

My Mum have birth to my brother who was stillborn in 1972. She laboured on her own - my Dad was down the pub. She gave birth in stirrups with no pain relief.

They told her he was a boy but she never saw him and doesn't know what they did with him. I have never truly considered the horrific effect this had on her. My relationship with her has always been difficult - I am ashamed to say I have never given her mental health issues much thought, in the context of this trauma.

Yes, it was standard practice back then.

My Nan had a Downs baby with a heart problem in the 50's. The baby was taken from her and not given medical assistance, as it wasn't deemed worthy of aid. They let the baby die then sent her home, in pieces. No burial sight to visit, etc.

Luckily, our family are Salvation Army, who were a big part of adoptions back then, and a few days later a baby was handed into a local church. That baby was my Mum, who was in my Nan's arms a couple of days after her baby died.

My Nan and Grandad were told to not have more children as they would be likely to be Downs again (not advice given now) but a year later another child was left at the local SA (the Mother of whom, coincidentally, was a neighbour of My Mum's birth Mum and enquired about the couple who took in the baby that was left the previous year) and my Uncle was taken in by my Grandparents.

We are an incredibly close family. My Mum has never wanted to find her birth Mum but my Uncle did and found out that, although married, his birth parents gave up 8 children. He is now in touch with his birth siblings.

I can only assume that my Nan got over the death of her baby by pouring all of her love into all of us. She is, to this day, an incredible matriarch and tower of strength for all of us.

They touched on this in an episode of Call The Midwife - a severely disabled new born baby was left in the sluice room by an open window for 'nature to take its course'. It happened, it was horrific.

tbh i think there's still a huge amount concerning around pregnancy and birth in the uk - c. 65% of maternity units were found to be giving substandard care in a recent CQC report. Women routinely describe being denied adequate/timely pain relief, having their distress and symptoms ignored, not given adequate food and drink on the wards, a lack breast feeding support etc etc

Women are STILL not consulted or listen to even when it comes to our own lives and bodies, and it's deplorable.

I found my paternal aunts grave, she only lived for 90 minutes. She was buried in a mass grave along with other babies. My grandmother never knew what happened to her, she just always said the hospital took care of those things. It brought my dad a lot of comfort, that he didn't know he needed when we could finally go and see where she was.

Triballeader You are such a wonderful soul.🌺

It is very heartbreaking, think as pp’s have said, people had different thoughts on how people should cope in the past. And now I think medically and societally people know there are better ways of supporting women and their families after still birth. Years ago in hospitals they were much more regimented as well, there was an attitude of you do what the nurses tell you, and the nurses did what the doctors told them (and often majority of doctors were male) not sure of you have ever seen call the midwife but they cover a lot of these themes and it is often quite realistic how they have portrayed the past.