People who have lost babies are being invited to light a candle or leave a message at St Peter’s Church, Harrogate next week.
Baby Loss Awareness Week, which runs from October 9 to 15, is an awareness and support campaign around pregnancy and baby loss.
One in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage and 250 babies are stillborn every day in the UK.
Reflect, a pregnancy loss support charity, will be holding a Light a Candle remembrance event from 12.45pm to 2pm on Tuesday at St Peter’s Church. People will be able to light a candle or leave a message in remembrance of their loss.
Baby Loss Awareness Week, now in its 20th year, enables those affected to come together to remember and commemorate lost children.
The week also provides an opportunity to raise awareness of the impact of pregnancy and baby loss and the importance of bereavement support.
Tanya Allen from Reflect charity said:
“We hope that our Light a Candle event will provide an opportunity for local bereaved parents and families to remember their precious babies. We also would like anyone dealing with the pain of pregnancy and baby loss to know that there is support available; at Reflect we provide free one-to-one support for individuals and couples.”
Baby Loss Awareness Week is observed internationally and culminates with the Wave of Light on October 15, when people across the world light a candle at 7pm local time and leave it burning to remember all babies that have died too soon.
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Knaresborough couple campaign for ‘Matilda’s Law’ after death of baby daughter
A Knaresborough couple are campaigning for changes to maternity services after ‘avoidable delays’ in delivery led to their baby daughter’s death.
Whitney Pickup went into labour at Harrogate District Hospital on July 2, 2018.
She was advised by doctors to proceed with a natural delivery even though her first child was delivered via emergency caesarean section at another hospital.
Following an unsuccessful forceps delivery, her daughter Matilda was born by caesarean section with severe brain damage.
Matilda was admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit at Bradford Royal Infirmary before being transferred to Martin House Hospice, where she died at nine days old.
Ms Pickup, 33, and husband Andy, 35, subsequently instructed medical negligence lawyers at Irwin Mitchell to investigate the care provided by Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust.
An investigation, carried out by the trust, found “there were avoidable delays in achieving the delivery of Matilda which caused or materially contributed to her sad death”.
Among the problems identified by a subsequent Root Cause Analysis Report was a failure to obtain previous maternity and delivery notes, which would have alerted doctors to the risks involved as well as avoidable delays in the operating theatre and communication issues.
The couple are now campaigning for Matilda’s Law to make it mandatory for hospital trusts to share antenatal, maternity and labour records if the mother is under the care of a different trust in future pregnancies.
Ms Pickup, who is also mother to Charlie, five, and Isaac, one, believes her daughter’s death could have been avoided if the hospital had requested her medical records. She said:
“It’s still so difficult for me and Andy to accept that Matilda is no longer here and she didn’t get to experience any sort of life.
“What makes it worse and all the more upsetting is knowing our daughter’s death could have been avoided had the hospital simply requested my medical records, making them aware of the risks.
“We will never forget Matilda and she will always be part of our family. We now want to honour her memory by it being law for trusts to share relevant information to improve patient care and ensure staff are aware of any potential complications.
“If we can prevent this happening to anyone else than at least we can take something from what we’ve had to go through.”
An inquest into Matilda’s death, which is expected to last for four days, started in Harrogate yesterday.
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Victoria Moss, the specialist medical negligence lawyer representing the couple, said:
“Through our work, we sadly come across too many families left to pick up the pieces following the death of a baby following avoidable failings.
“We would urge trusts to always work in partnership, not only by sharing patient records so the best possible care plans can be put in place, but also by sharing best practice. This we believe would reduce the number of mother and babies either seriously injured or killed.
A spokesman for Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust said it would comment after the inquest.
Charity Corner: Harrogate baby loss charity stops families feeling ‘alone’A Harrogate charity has been described as “the club you never want to be a part of”.
Yet Our Angels offers vital support for many families across the district after the loss of a baby. It was set up by Emma Lofthouse in 2009, after she lost her son Charlie 35 weeks into her pregnancy the year before.
Losing Charlie came as a huge shock to Emma, who already had two children. She said she wanted something to put her energy into and a way to keep talking about her son.
Our Angels started as a support group for anyone affected by baby loss, whether that is an early miscarriage or a neonatal death.
Mrs Lofthouse said:
“I was astonished there was no support in Harrogate. I felt lost and alone.”
Every year the charity gets families together to send bubbles into the air in memory of their loss. Photograph: Our Angels
The charity now fundraises thousands of pounds for Harrogate District Hospital’s maternity ward and training for midwives across the county.
Mrs Lofthouse said she believes it’s important for midwives to be trained to support the family straight away, as the midwife is often the first person there when they lose their baby.
Along with the trustees, Mrs Lofthouse runs monthly meetings at the Majestic Hotel in Harrogate where families can come to talk about their babies and get emotional support.
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Mrs Lofthouse said:
“We can’t stop this happening but we can offer support after it does.
“People don’t want to talk about baby loss because it is heart breaking, but it is also so much more common that people think. It shouldn’t be a taboo subject.”
In October 2020, work was completed on the newly renovated and renamed Bluebell Suite at Harrogate Hospital after the charity donated £45,000.
The suite is a place where parents go after losing their baby. The charity wanted to ensure parents had everything they needed as they spend precious time with their child.
The charity also provides memory boxes to the hospital which are given to every set of parents. The box was one of the first things Mrs Lofthouse began fundraising for.
She added:
“When I left hospital I had nothing tangible to hold in his memory. This was one of the first things I wanted to fundraise for.”
The memory box is a way for the charity to tell families they aren’t alone. Photograph: Our Angels
The box includes a blanket the family can wrap their baby in and then take photographs. This way they have as a keepsake when they leave hospital. It also contains a leaflet about the charity, giving parents and other family members the option to get in touch for extra support.
Mrs Lofthouse says she will always be grateful for Our Angels giving her the chance to keep talking about her son Charlie almost 12 years on. She says she is honoured to offer families support after losing someone so precious.
To learn more about Our Angels you can find their website here or get in touch with them on Facebook, just search ‘ Our Angels charity and support group’.