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Each year the 9-15 October is Baby Loss Awareness Week and throughout the week bereaved parents, family members and friends can commemorate the all-too-brief lives of their babies, knowing that thousands of other families elsewhere in the world will be doing the same. The week also provides a crucial opportunity for people to talk openly about the subject of and raise awareness of baby loss. The latest figures available show that in 2014 there were 4.16 stillbirths per 1000 babies born, and 1.77 neonatal deaths per 1000.

Our specialist bereavement support midwives will be manning a stall in the entrance from 10-1500hr, along with other staff and parents who belong to the local Sands bereavement support group, with literature from the Sands (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society) organisation, TAMBA (twins and multiple births association,  ARC (Antenatal Results and Choices), Miscarriage Association and Kicks Count organisation.

Within the maternity service, support, care and information are offered to parents who lose a baby at any stage in pregnancy or in the early neonatal period, for any reason. Parents often say they did not know that a baby could die after the early weeks of pregnancy, and also find that friends, family and colleagues don’t know how to support them. We hope to raise awareness and conversation about baby loss through this stand and our conversations.