Baby Loss

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I thank the co-sponsors for securing the debate and for all colleagues’ powerful contributions so far tonight. Many of those contributions have focused on preventable baby loss, calling for lessons to be learnt and for more to be done, which I fully support. However, I would like to take this opportunity to shine a light on the many occasions when baby loss is not preventable, but where I believe there is still more that could be done as a society.

Earlier this year, my wife and I had an early miscarriage. It was our first pregnancy and we were extremely excited when we got the positive test result. We were very quick to tell all our friends and family. We had no negative signs ahead of our 12-week scan, but during that scan it became quickly apparent that something was not right. We were asked whether it was possible that it could have been nine weeks. Then a second staff member came in and shortly after we were told that there was no heartbeat. We were moved to another room where we asked all the questions that I am sure many ask in this situation. Was there anything we could do? Is there anything we could do differently next time? We were reassured that, actually, it was extremely common, there was nothing we could have done, and that it happens to around one in four or five people.

On our journey home, we felt a bit silly for not knowing that fact and for not being prepared for how common that type of miscarriage was. We wondered why we had not been told in our early antenatal appointments that it was a possibility. We also wondered why we had not heard that so much from friends and family, or seen it in conversations on the TV. After that, we pledged that we would talk about it more.

After that moment, we were faced with some morbid choices: a natural miscarriage, the opportunity to take some pills, or some sort of surgical procedure. We were given a leaflet to think about it and off we went. We did not actually have the opportunity to make that choice, because shortly after we found out the miscarriage started to happen naturally. I can only say that I was not prepared for the level of brutality that that would entail. We were told that it might be like period pains, but it was much more severe than that for my wife and the volume of blood was unsettling. I could not believe it was normal while it was happening.

We started googling and looking online for advice, and we were lucky to find blogs by Tommy’s and other organisations that have been mentioned today, which provided us with some reassurance. However, we still ended up going to A&E because we were concerned about the blood loss. They gave us some reassurance, and we managed to go home with some medication and to get through that event. The follow-up from that traumatic incident in our lives was a simple phone call; we had to report a negative pregnancy test a few weeks later, and that was the end of the support.

Before I run out of time, I must add that we were keen to get on, and we have since got pregnant again. We have jumped that 12-week hurdle, and we are now aware that the chances of miscarriage have greatly diminished, so we are in a better place than we were. However, we are still wondering about what more can be done to provide reassurance to people in that really troubling moment.

I ask the Secretary of State whether we can record every miscarriage so that we can get firmer statistics about how often this happens. I ask him also to look at whether we can provide access for people 24 hours a day so that they do not have unsettling moments wondering if they need to attend A&E, and whether the mental health support that is in place after a third miscarriage could be in place from that very first moment, because it is a deeply traumatic event for anybody to go through. I think we need to talk about it as a society much more, so that the next couple is prepared.