A stillbirth is every mother's worst nightmare - and Britain has a poor record. More than 3,500 babies are stillborn in Britain every year - that's more per head than in other European countries including Poland, Croatia and Holland.
These alarming figures have just come to light and will be published by the Office for National Statistics later this year. But what is really shocking is how easily so many of these tragic deaths could be avoided, just by doctors, hospitals and midwives following procedures and guidelines that are already in place. The most important change that could be made to reduce stillbirths would be listening to mothers who say that their baby is moving less (or not at all) in the later stages of pregnancy, and taking their concerns seriously.
The Sunday Times Safer Births Campaign is calling for a 60% reduction in stillbirths, which experts say could be achieved by applying basic care guidelines on monitoring and intervention, and the presence of a consultant obstetrician in all maternity hospitals. If you think this should be every family's right, please sign our petition at change.org.
But first read this incredibly moving piece by Judith O'Reilly, a former colleague of mine, who went through this terrible ordeal.
Among the words certain to bring me out in a cold sweat is "stillbirth". Another trigger is "dead" attached to "baby", "son" or "child". There's a theme, you see.
I should have a 16-year-old wandering round the house, watching YouTube videos and stress-eating to cope with his GCSEs. Except I don't.
I don't, because my baby son's body lies in a tiny white coffin in an Essex churchyard, where we buried him 16 years ago. A shocking thought. To me, anyway. But stillbirth is like that. Shocking. A whole life. A future taken away before the child draws breath.
When I see the UK has a higher rate of stillbirths than countries with a less developed healthcare system, I wonder what is going wrong.
What is Iceland doing right to have the lowest rate of stillbirth among 186 countries? What changes are being made in Holland, where between 2000 and 2015 there has been an annual decrease in stillbirths of 6.8% compared with our measly 1.4%? Why aren't we up in arms? Are we such fatalists that we bury our babies and think, "That's life for you," and "Is it Call the Midwife tonight? Put the kettle on, will you?" My son died in utero two days before his due date. I enjoyed a good pregnancy — ate organically, quit drinking, took up pregnancy yoga, avoided blue cheese, prawns, liver and bad influences. I bloomed with happiness.
The only problem: I could not sleep. One night, though, I slept well and late. Almost at the moment of waking, I realised the baby was not moving. I had a hot bath, ate vanilla ice cream — an instinctive part of me already knew, but the rational woman decided I was wrong. Because I had to be wrong.
At Guy's Hospital in London, the room was dark as the midwife swept my pregnant belly for the heartbeat on the ultrasound machine. I waited for the grainy pulse, for the baby to move. In vain. She called in a more experienced colleague and my husband gripped my hand. Terror. Fear. Think of your worst nightmare. Then double it.
A woman with a kind face and efficient manner arrived. Silent, she watched the screen as she moved the scanner over my stomach, pressing it to find a scrap of life and finding instead death, horror and desolation.
When she left us, I sat up awkwardly on the bed and my husband wrapped his arms around me. Screaming, I held on to him in the darkness. I know the exact sound a heart makes when it breaks — it sounds like a wolf. Both of us heard it.
Judith O'Reilly is a writer and former education correspondent for The Sunday Times.