Baby Loss

Amanda Hack Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) and for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) and the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) for securing this important debate during Baby Loss Awareness Week to give those who have experienced pregnancy and baby loss that voice and the feeling that they are not alone. When I had my son 18 years ago, I was lucky to have the support of five other mums during those first tricky years with our babies. However, sadly for three of those mums, they had also suffered the heartbreak of a miscarriage. For them, they had support from each of us. It was not a silent subject; they could talk and share about their loss. However, at the time, I remember thinking about how their partners were coping with that loss without having that same support network. It is so important that both parents have the support they need after such devastating bereavement, such as from organisations like Ashby Sands United in my constituency. Ashby Sands is a football team for men who have suffered the devastating loss of a child or a miscarriage. One of their members told me at a recent event,

“Sometimes I don’t need to say anything, the lads know how I feel. The football isn’t always good, but the friendship and the support I get from them is what I cherish.”

In this debate, it is experience that matters, and my constituent Sarah has asked me to share these words:

“Losing a baby is an incredibly difficult and isolating time, to then learn that our baby’s death was preventable is just soul destroying. Feelings of guilt and regret—and whether it could have been prevented. Mistakes were made in my pregnancy, incorrect measurements were recorded, follow up scans were not arranged, our care was mismanaged. The hospital admitted if these scans had happened and measurements were recorded accurately; we would have had a different outcome. At one of our most exciting and vulnerable times of our lives, we put our trust and care into the hands of strangers. Trusting that we will be treated with the dignity and respect that we each deserve.”

Sarah stressed the need to drive changes in teaching and learning to make maternity and childbirth safer for all. She welcomes the rapid review and its potential to bring about much-needed changes to maternity care across the UK, but she stresses the need for a trauma-informed approach to the consultation. Those who have experienced that trauma will need support to engage. Will the Secretary of State say more about how trauma will be considered in the review?

I also welcome the rapid review. My constituents can have their babies in Nottingham, Leicester or Derby. As a former Leicestershire county councillor, I sat on the health overview and scrutiny committee. The saddest report that I requested was about maternity healthcare and baby loss. As Nottinghamshire was a neighbouring trust, I wanted to understand the situation in Leicestershire. We received a report on babies who died in childbirth. In a six-year period, seven babies had died and seven families had dealt with that devastating loss. In line with the statistics on late-term loss, six of the mothers were black or Asian. Data indicates that neonatal mortality rates for black and Asian babies are over 50% higher than for white babies. Will the Secretary of State set out how he will work towards eliminating those stark inequalities in maternity and neonatal outcomes based on ethnicity and deprivation?

I have considered a number of reports on maternity and have a few reflections. Maternity healthcare needs to be considered as healthcare. I have heard phrases such as “pregnancy isn’t an illness” and “giving birth is natural”, but I have also heard from mothers who felt that they were not listened to and felt powerless. Every stillbirth, neonatal death or infant death is a tragedy. We must make efforts to prevent them from happening. I know that, together, we will fight for justice for those who deserved just a little bit more time.