Baby Loss Awareness Week

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of Baby Loss Awareness Week.

Ahead of Baby Loss Awareness Week 2021, which falls in recess this year, between 9 and 15 October, it was important to bring this debate to the House to highlight the fantastic strides that are being made in this area, to underline where more needs to be achieved, and for Members to reflect not only on their own personal experiences, but on those of our constituents.

Considering that one in 14 babies dies before, during or soon after birth, Baby Loss Awareness Week continues to be an essential focal point for bereaved families. I thank hon. and right hon. Members across the House—those who are here today and those who are unable to be here—for their solid and unwavering support for this most difficult of issues. I am grateful to those who have spared the time to speak and I pay particular thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for enabling this consideration to return to the Chamber, illustrating to bereaved families across the country how important their experiences are to representatives in this place.

On the run-up to this debate, I have been struck by the number of colleagues from all parts of the House who have spoken to me privately about their losses. Many are still simply unable to speak in public about their own experience, as it is still too difficult, even after many years.

As co-chair of the all-party group on baby loss, I have received wonderful support from: my co-chair, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), who has utilised his knowledge and expertise to advance the cause; the many bereavement charities; and Ministers from the Department of Health and Social Care, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), who, as Minister, totally comprehended the issues and championed much progress in this area.

In that vein, I warmly welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), to her place and look forward to continuing the excellent work already begun. In addition, I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti) would have been here to speak had he not been promoted to the Health and Social Care Front-Bench team. He was marshalling the Balsall Common Fun Run and, on his behalf, I pay tribute to the Lily Mae Foundation for organising nearly 1,000 runners.

Last year was my first such experience in this role. I told the story of my loss—the diagnosis of severe spina bifida at the 20-week scan, and the choice, which is actually no choice at all, to terminate. I talked about the termination itself, the delivery, the cuddles and the kisses for my tiny daughter, Lily, and, finally, letting her go—you never really let them go, though, do you? I talked about how difficult it was to leave the hospital without my baby, about how it physically aches, and about how a part of my heart and soul had been left behind.

I wish to put on record my thanks again to the wonderful bereavement midwifery team at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro. The kindness and compassion that they showed us in our darkest hours will never be forgotten. My work in this place, on this very subject, has given me a focus to channel my energy, but I will not lie that it is difficult at times. My grieving is now done quietly at home in stolen moments with her photograph—

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is an amazing achievement for her to bring this debate today and that she will get cross-party support from all of us?

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

rose—

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[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I thank my dear friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), for having the bravery we have seen here today, but also for how, throughout her time in this place, she has fought and campaigned very bravely for those who have experienced the loss that she has experienced. I think we see this place at its very best when we come together, put politics aside and discuss the issues that are so important and affect so many thousands of families across our country. I also pay tribute to the former Minister for patient safety, suicide prevention and mental health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), who has certainly put campaigning for women’s health at the front of her Government’s priorities.

I, too, have experienced baby loss, and I remember it as if it was yesterday. It was my first pregnancy with my husband and, sadly, at eight weeks it did not continue. It is something that stays with me even today; this is the first time I have actually spoken about it publicly. However, I was very fortunate in that, within five months, I was pregnant again and I had my rainbow baby. Until Mrs Johnson, the Prime Minister’s wife, used that term I had never heard of a rainbow baby, but it is a fantastic term because it is about the positiveness that can come after the dreadful experience of losing a baby. My rainbow baby is now 17 years of age, in her last year of school and about to begin her life adventure.

It was not until I had my miscarriage that I realised that one in four pregnancies can be lost in this country, usually early—before 12 weeks. More than this, estimates from St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington in my constituency suggest that there are about a quarter of a million miscarriages every year in the UK, and about 11,000 emergency admissions for ectopic pregnancies, which always, sadly, result in pregnancy loss.

I think the theme of wellbeing for the forthcoming Baby Loss Awareness Week this year is so important. On this, I am very proud to highlight the work of the brilliant maternity wards at St Mary’s Hospital, which were the first in London to receive an outstanding rating from the Care Quality Commission. I invite the Minister to join me on a future visit to see their work at first hand, with, I hope, my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth.

I note that patients from St Mary’s, which is part of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, have been taking part in a new study showing that one in six women experience long-term post-traumatic stress following baby loss.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on having a rainbow baby, as I do myself. We know that the road to pregnancy is not always smooth, and the numbers she has just highlighted show how frequently this happens. Is it not now time that we reviewed the cruel requirement for three miscarriages or baby losses before medical intervention is offered to families?

[Nickie Aiken]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention, and I think it is clear from the debate today that there needs to be more support for women and their partners when they experience miscarriage. I will never forget, when I became pregnant with my daughter, how terrified I was of going for the 12-week scan, because my first experience had been one of baby loss and I had been told at that scan that the baby was not viable. I think I would have benefited from some counselling and some support when I was going for that scan for the second baby.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for the very powerful speech is making. I appreciate the very personal nature of what she is sharing, and it brings so much to this House that everyone is doing that. Would she join me in commending local organisations, such as Held In Our Hearts in my Livingston constituency, which has been operating for 40 years, that provide support with counselling services for those who have experienced baby loss, and does she agree that they are absolutely vital in supporting those who have suffered such loss?

[Nickie Aiken]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention, and she is absolutely right. We are blessed in this country with having so many outstanding charities and organisations that support women and their partners when they are experiencing baby loss.

The Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust study has revealed some incredible findings. For example, after one month following a pregnancy loss, nearly a third of women suffer post-traumatic stress, while nearly one in four experiences moderate to severe anxiety and one in ten has moderate to severe depression. These women are going through such pain, and it is clear that they need more support. The scale is truly astonishing. Here I think due consideration should be paid not just to the women, but to the bereaved families. As we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), this does affect the fathers involved. I remember, from my own experience, my husband going through such loss.

When I was researching for this debate, I reached out to an outstanding woman called Jane Scott, who is the senior bereavement midwife at the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. She is here today I believe—I think in the Gallery above me—with her colleague Lauren Petrie. Midwives up and down this country do amazing work, but Jane in particular gave me powerful testimony before this debate. She explained that, before 2013, there was little or no provision in the labour ward she worked on at St Mary’s for parents who had experienced the death of a baby. Due to her tenacity, and to her basically battling the NHS trust, she was able to secure specialist services for bereaved parents. She told me that at the time she was battling,

“parental complaints were rife…Babies were going missing, funerals were going ahead without the parent’s knowledge, communication was poor which added longevity to the grieving process for parents…There was no provision for psychological support/counselling for parents.”

I was completely shocked when I read that, because to lose a baby, no matter how early in the pregnancy, and not to be able to have a funeral, is absolutely unacceptable.

With Jane’s hard work, and her setting up of bereavement services at St Mary’s, complaints from parents dropped by 90%. She said that the ward became almost unrecognisable, and much more of a positive place to be. Jane is a member of the all-party group on baby loss, and she continues to campaign to highlight the importance of understanding the effects of baby loss. She has now set up the national Bereavement Midwife Forum, which compares services, exchanges best practice, and provides support for midwives. There are now 250 members of the Bereavement Midwife Forum across the UK, and I pay tribute to Jane Scott and her fellow midwives for the outstanding work they provide.

From speaking to Jane, and others, I know that the Bereavement Midwife Forum firmly believes in, and is calling for, consideration for there to be one full-time bereavement midwife for every 3,000 deliveries in each trust. That is a reasonable request, and I would welcome any support that the Minister can provide to ensure that NHS trusts consider it. The forum is also calling for a standardisation of trauma counselling for bereavement midwives and bereaved parents. We must also ensure that there are band 8 regional bereavement midwives to oversee such services in each trust. Those are all sensible measures.

I wish to ensure that there is more support for midwives, particularly those who experience the dreadful death of a baby when looking after a mother—I cannot imagine how it must feel to be in that profession and experience that, and to work with a mother and a father who are going through such trauma. We must do more to support midwives, and doctors, who have that dreadful experience. Again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth for securing this debate. I am in awe of her. I also again pay tribute to all those midwives and doctors who work tirelessly day in, day out. To anyone who has experienced the bereavement of a lost baby I say this: you are not alone.

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[Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con)]

What an honour it is to follow my good friend, the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland). I pay tribute to him for his openness and honesty today. I think we need more of that in this House. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) for securing the debate and bravely sharing again her story about Lily, and for her tireless work on the all-party parliamentary group on baby loss. Sometimes we end up in these things, but it is what we make of them that counts. In her speech, and in her answers to interventions, it was clear that she really knows her stuff. So I commend her. I also thank my constituents who wrote to me last year after my contribution to the debate and this year asking me to be here today.

This is an opportunity for us to talk about our shared humanity and our shared stories right across the whole Chamber. It is something that affects us all. I have always found that being open in discussing a sensitive subject is a good thing. It encourages others to open up and talk about things. However, as I was preparing for the debate today, I knew why I do not talk about these things sometimes. There is a real physical reaction to bringing those memories back to the forefront of your mind. Your eyes prick with tears, it becomes difficult to swallow and you wonder if you are going to be able to get the words out and speak. We have seen, in contributions across the Chamber, that we are all in that position. Even as I was writing my speech today and writing notes, I could feel that physical reaction to things that happened a long, long time ago.

As I was looking up statistics, as we do in this place, I realised that I am a statistic on a piece of paper—quite an awkward thing to be sometimes. I want to focus my comments on the mental health side of baby loss. On stillbirth and mental health, Tommy’s, a great charity and resource, has stated that women who have suffered stillbirth or neonatal death are more likely to have anxiety and depression afterwards. One study in the US of 800 women showed that women who had stillbirth were twice as likely to have depression, compared with those who had live births. That effect had actually increased when they were studied again two years later, showing that stillbirth has a long-term effect on mental health. Another study of 609 women who had experienced stillbirth or neonatal death showed that women who had loss were four times more likely to have depression and seven times more likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder. In my speech last year, I talked about flashbacks. They catch you by surprise and come at the most unexpected times. Something will trigger one, bringing those physical sensations right to the forefront.

I wanted to talk a little about my story. I have schoolfriends who had to give birth to babies who no longer had a heartbeat and, on the anniversary each year, watch the photos go up on Facebook. It is wonderful that they are able to celebrate—that is probably the wrong word—to recognise that child and that their friends share that with them, even though it is very difficult to look at those photos. I had a very good schoolfriend who, like my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth, at 20 weeks found out in a scan that the amniotic fluid was disappearing and that her baby was being crushed slowly in the womb. She had to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy because the baby would never have survived. Because she was such a good friend, I lived that with her.

Last year, I talked about the three miscarriages I had in a row. Life was wonderful and fine and we managed to have our first child. I am one of those people who is very lucky in that I am incredibly fertile—I am sure my husband wishes I was not quite so fertile—and we were able to fall pregnant very easily. I talked about the fact that we had contracted a horrible SARS-like illness back in 2003 and that, in the following year, I had three back-to-back miscarriages. I think it says something about my character that I was so driven to have another baby that I would have a miscarriage and then two weeks later in the cycle I would ovulate and fall pregnant. That happened three times in a row, so I suffered the loss of a baby and then was pregnant again two weeks later. That happened three times. When we fell pregnant with our second child—he was my rainbow baby—I had been pregnant for 18 months. I think there were a lot of missed opportunities to pick up on the fact that I was having mental health problems, both perinatal and postnatal. Towards the latter stages of my pregnancy with him, I was absolutely desperate to give birth. I almost could not cope with being pregnant any more. It was very difficult looking after a toddler as well.

After I gave birth the second time, the same thing happened to me as the first time: I had retained placenta, I haemorrhaged and I had to be returned to hospital to have blood transfusions and IV antibiotics. The first time, I had my baby with me; the second time I didn’t have my baby with me, because I couldn’t—I just had to get better, and I needed to leave him to be looked after by my mum. As many in this House know, my second baby is on the autism spectrum.

[Nickie Aiken]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is so important to understand the mental health issues that can surround pregnancies and can occur soon after birth? We need a better understanding of that.

[Angela Richardson]

I could not agree more. By the time I had got to my third baby, they realised that they needed to do more to make sure that postnatally I was in a much better position. In the debate last year, I talked about one of the babies I lost, in the second trimester; I asked for a test to be done, but the hospital did not do it. They just sent the foetus to the incinerator, and they had to apologise for it. I was left wondering for a long time what I had done wrong.

With my son, who is on the autism spectrum, I had post-natal depression and I did not take him to hospital with me. I spent years feeling guilty, because that is what happens to us as mums: we feel guilty for everything and we spend years making things up to our children. That is one of the things that I think we really need to address in looking after the mental health of mums, because it impacts not just on our children, but on their siblings, on our husbands and on family members who are not even in the same country as us.

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[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I have very much appreciated being able to listen to this debate and hear very moving speeches from Members on both sides of the House. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) for her leadership on the issue, and to the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), for his work. I join him in commending the work that has taken place in recent years to improve maternity services and reduce baby loss in our NHS, but I note his comparison with Sweden, the fact that we could do so much better, and the need for changes to services and to the culture of how we support babies and mothers in the NHS.

I was born in the old Westminster Hospital, which looked over the Houses of Parliament, so it could be said that my path was set. My children were born in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, looking over Wormwood Scrubs prison; I hope that their path is not set, but my wife and I have done a lot of work in prisons. In the context of this debate, I would like to draw attention to yesterday’s report on the very tragic and scandalous events at HMP Bronzefield in 2019.

A young woman, a girl aged 18, was left alone in her prison cell to give birth. The baby died, and nobody found out until the next day that the woman had given birth. There have been a series of reports on and investigations of the tragedy; they conclude that a litany of mistakes were made, with a confusion of services and staff. There was obviously no malice anywhere along the line, but there was a lot of misunderstanding and dysfunction in the system.

I wonder—it would be good to get an indication of the Minister’s views on this—whether it is appropriate for pregnant women to be in prison at all. In recent decades, there has been a significant reduction in the incarceration of women, and indeed of pregnant women. That is very positive, but we still have women’s prisons, although their numbers are reducing. I remember going many years ago to the women and babies unit at HMP Holloway, which was actually a very impressive and wonderful place. That prison has now closed because we do not lock up so many women.

[Nickie Aiken]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the report. Does he agree that questions have to be asked about why an 18-year-old who was on remand and pregnant should be in prison?

[Danny Kruger]

That is the point that I am making: there is a big question about the incarceration of women and the appropriate punishment for women, but I think that it is absolutely the right question for us to consider. I know that in their sentencing, judges take into account whether women are pregnant, but I suspect that something went wrong in this case. From what I read, it sounds as if the girl was very troubled; in my uninformed view, she should not have been in prison at all for the time that she was pregnant.

Given the sophistication of modern electronic tagging, which is increasing all the time—the Government are investing significantly in it, and I commend them for that—I wonder whether consideration should be given to changing the rules around the incarceration of pregnant women.