Baby Loss Awareness Week

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

I feel extremely humbled to be able to speak in the debate. Let me start by paying tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Colchester (Will Quince), for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) and for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), as well as all members of the all-party group. They have shone a much-needed light on the issue of baby loss, its effect on parents, and the need for action. They have not only pushed for change, but helped to achieve it. On behalf of everyone who has ever suffered, I take this opportunity to say thank you.

We must also pay tribute to the medical professionals who work day in, day out to prevent baby loss and deal with it, and to organisations such as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, as well as charities such as Sands. They play an important role in developing programmes and reviewing the care provided for expectant and bereaved parents.

Baby loss is not a regional or even a national problem, but an international one. It affects people in all our constituencies, and hurts and devastates families in Wiltshire and throughout the country. It has touched my own family. My grandma experienced the loss of her first-born in 1948 when the child was breached. Tragically, the ambulance reached her too late. The months after that were probably the hardest that she experienced in her life, and I heard about them when I was growing up. Like other women in the same situation, she struggled with the ordeal of having carried the baby and prepared for its birth, only to lose that child as soon as it arrived. Devastated and receiving no help, my grandmother suffered a period of depression.

That is the story of the strongest, most no-nonsense woman I have ever met in my life. She was a woman full of grit and strength, yet she had no help in her time of need, and even the strongest among us do need help. My grandma is long passed and now in heaven, but I think that she would want me to share her story, and to ask the question: why, after so many, many years, are the rates of baby loss still so high? The most recent review of stillbirths and neonatal deaths in the UK reports that of 782,720 births in 2015, 3,032 were stillbirths and 1,360 were neonatal deaths. Yes, there has been a reduction since 2013, but the number remains higher than those in comparable European countries.

I am proud that the Government have taken action to address maternity care and set an ambitious target, which I think is bold and moral, to halve stillbirth rates by 2030. Now we must all work together to ensure that we meet that target by keeping the subject on the agenda. I hope that debates such as today’s will help to serve that purpose so that 69 years from now, when another MP is standing here, they are not saying the same thing.

I think that my grandmother would also ask why, 69 years on, we have failed to improve our bereavement care to a satisfactory and appropriate level. Bereavement care, as has been pointed out, is the focus of this year’s Baby Loss Awareness Week. Bereavement care is vital, both for psychological and emotional support, and for advice and signposting. Since 2010 we have invested £35 million in the NHS to improve birthing environments, including better bereavement rooms in 40 hospitals. We need that for every hospital and facility. The current guidelines vary far too much between setting and service. In addition, most of the frameworks are guidelines, and they are not mandatory, or indeed monitored, in all areas. That is why the Government’s work to create a national bereavement care pathway is so important. That will reduce the variation in the quality of bereavement care provided by the NHS so that residents in Wiltshire get the same care as those in, say, London or Manchester. That is essential.

One can only imagine how harrowing and devastating the loss of a baby must be. I think that the courage that Members have displayed by sharing their experiences in this House is remarkable. Bereavement care must be of a high quality, consistent, individualised and available across the UK. It is time that we achieved that so that, as I have said already, we do not look back in 69 years’ time and again ask why we are not doing more for those in need.

It is estimated that today about 15 babies in the UK will die before, during or shortly after birth. Today let us not only remember those who have suffered and the babies they have lost, but pledge to work together, across parties, to support the Government’s work and ensure that nobody faces a postcode lottery when it comes to baby loss. We need to determine what should be the level of bereavement support and ensure that it is consistent across the country so that parents receive what they deserve if they tragically lose a child.