Baby Loss

Jess Asato Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jess Asato (Lowestoft) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. and right hon. Members for securing today’s debate on such an important issue that is sadly too often overlooked. Earlier this year, I was incredibly grateful to meet Angels and Rainbows, a local group in my Lowestoft constituency run by bereaved parents who support others through the experience of baby loss. I put on record in this place my sincere thanks for their vital work, which is life-affirming, trauma-informed and grounded in the realities of grief. One key issue they wished me to raise today was how women who have just lost a baby are placed on the same wards as those who have just given birth.

It feels deeply cruel that parents who have just been through the trauma of child loss should have to share the same space as joyful new mothers and healthy new babies making their first cries. That is why hospitals should provide a space away from new parents and the maternity unit, so that parents can grieve in peace. As my local hospital, the James Paget, is brilliantly part of the new hospital building programme, I hope that its senior leadership looks at the need for a dedicated private space for bereavement care in its plans.

Training is key, too. Parents told me how vital it is for staff to receive appropriate training in how to communicate sensitively with families going through baby loss. As one constituent said:

“I felt the staff weren’t prepared or prepared me on what was happening or going to happen. It was as if it was a taboo subject.”

The quality of care received by my constituents has been very inconsistent, with some feeling well supported and others not at all, particularly once they were out of hospital. One of my constituents found out at her 12-week scan that she had suffered a “missed miscarriage”, and was given medication and told to expect an experience similar to a bad period. Instead, she nearly passed out from the agonising pain, had contractions, and passed the pregnancy on her bathroom floor at home. She had been given no guidance on what to do next, and was not given any reassurance when she reached out for advice. She was not offered a follow-up scan, contacted by a midwife, or signposted to counselling or a specialist service. Left without support, she was later diagnosed with PTSD.

Unprepared staff, the dearth of support services and long waiting times for counselling make this horrible situation worse, and it is important to recognise that fathers too are suffering from that lack of support. Dads have told me that they even felt ignored by services, while also needing to support their partners in turn. We must do better, for everyone, which is why Angels and Rainbows is campaigning for a full-time bereavement midwife or bereavement support worker in every hospital. For a while we had one at the James Paget, and some really positive changes had been made as a result and through work with our intrepid support group. Sadly, in May this year that role was cut, despite the trust’s acknowledgment that the role was “undoubtedly beneficial to families”. While all midwives need training, it takes a lead to help to co-produce change with those with lived experience, drive it through and then, importantly, sustain that change.

In the words of one of my constituents, baby loss

“is not ‘just’ a medical event. It is the loss of a child, a dream, and a future. Without compassionate systems in place, the trauma of miscarriage can last a lifetime.”

With her words to close my speech, I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this moving debate during Baby Loss Awareness Week.