Support for parents who have lost their babies

[BirdFromDaNorf]

Hi, I need some help please - I'm on the radio at 2PM on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire talking with a mum who has sadly lost her baby at 5 weeks of age. She wants to raise awareness of the lack of support that's out there for people who lose their babies. It's not so much stillbirth, but in the early months of life.

Has anyone here got any links to resources, info, support groups or anything else that would be useful in this conversation please? I'd like to be able to offer as much as possible to listeners. I do lots of work professionally with NHS Maternity Units but not with bereavement and want to do the best I can to make this something that's useful to listeners.

I know of FSID and Sands, but anything else would be appreciated. I'm very sorry to put this here, as I'm so conscious to not want to hijack this board but want to do the best I can with this.

If anyone wants to listen in via the web and/or call in with a contribution, you'd be most welcome. Thank you for your help x

There is also tommy's the baby charity, which supports miscarriages, still birth and child deaths, and looks into the causes and funds research. Adsa tend to do campaigns for them. If that is of any use to you.

Maybe some mums experiences of losing a child would help.

I know you probably didn't mean it but the way you have put "It's not so much stillbirth" really does look like you are separating the grief of losing a baby before birth from the grief of losing a newborn and it's coming across as insensitive. There are women here who have lost a baby at 20, 36, 37 even 40 weeks and to them they have most definitely lost a baby and from what I can tell, conversing with these ladies, every day, that their loss is just as great as the loss that I suffered when my 7 week old daughter died. They still have to give birth and they still have a funeral. And in fact, given that my daughter was premature, some of the babies of "stillbirth" were in fact actually on this earth considerably longer than she was.

I'm in Ireland so can't help much with support websites but most of my support has been online and from other bereaved MNers.

Hi, I'm someone who was upset by this post, though I appreciate that you didn't intend it that way.

My second daughter was stillborn at 37 weeks, nearly five months ago. I probably held the view that a 'stillbirth' wasn't that bad, until it happened to me.

I like the phrase "my baby may have been stillborn, but was 'still' born".

Like every other heavily pregnant woman, I went into hospital with a large bump, and left with a smaller (though saggy) tummy. I had to deliver my DD (in my case via EMCS when induction failed), I still had a baby to hold, a baby to look at, yet she wasn't breathing, she wasn't moving - she was lifeless. I'm sure you can appreciate that if you've had children, the idea of holding your baby, but having a lifeless, non-breathing infant is in fact horrific.

I still produced milk, still had my 6 week postnatal check-up, had midwife visits for 14 days. I had to recover from a caesarean, whilst attending a funeral directors to arrange her funeral. When I should have been dressing her in her coming home outfit, I was dressing her in her funeral outfit.

I've posted this after your broadcast, as I know that you specifically wanted to hear from mothers with older children, but I get upset that 'stillbirth' (a word I hate), is almost a dirty secret, not understood - not helped by the media who frequently get it wrong.

I hope you found the resources you were looking for, but please don't think that having a stillborn baby is an 'easy' loss. If you look on my profile you'll see that DD2 was certainly a real baby.

As mum who lost her son to a rare condition called Alveolar Capillary Dysplasia (ACD; a rare & fatal lung condition) at aged 15 days I would agree about the lack of support for parents. I have found strength and support from an international group of parents who have just been amazing. I didn't hear your broadcast ... this experience has opened my eyes to a whole different world.

I lost my baby at one day old. She could have died inside me a day earlier. The grief and devastation would have been no less. I know this thread is not about stillborn vs neonatal/perinatal loss, however, please take our comments into consideration.