Article on a new memorial for stillborn babies.

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The following article is from the Daily Telegraph, 11/6/2001

Lesley

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http://health.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2001/06/11

/thstill.xml

Solace for parents of stillborn babies

(Filed: 11/06/2001)

Cassandra Jardine on a charity set up by grieving parents

STILL-BORN babies are quickly forgotten - by all except their parents,

says Sue Hale, as we enter the new National Memorial Arboretum,

outside Lichfield, in Staffordshire. Most of the plots commemorate

those who died in action in the 20th century but, in their midst, lies

one garden with a more intimate feel.

From the entrance, a pathway winds through dark shrubbery in a

cemetery to an open space, designed like a weeping eye. Its pupil is a

low plinth, at the centre of which lies a sculpture of a new-born

baby, curled in sleep - inviting hands to stroke and minds to

remember.

While her other children play, Sue fights tears as she sits by the

baby and pulls out a book of photographs of her son who would

now be five. She is reliving the day she went into labour at home:

" Everything was going fine until the midwife tried to find a

heartbeat. We knew before I delivered him that he was dead. "

The photographs show the pink face of an apparently healthy 9lb baby,

wrapped in shawls, with strangely purple lips. " They say it's

something to do with never having breathed, " says Sue, who does not

know why, or when, died. " I wish I had held him for the

photographs but I couldn't bear to at the time. I wish, too, that I

had asked to keep him with us for longer, so that his grandparents

could see him. "

One family in 100 goes through this bereavement, yet Sue finds other

people embarrassed to talk about it. " People treat it like a failed

pregnancy and expect you to get over it fast. "

For the parents of a baby who dies at or soon after birth - and 19

such babies are born every day - that child needs to be mourned. " It's

worse in some ways than losing a child, " says Sue, " because there are

no happy times to look back on. " Sue was an environmental health

officer when was born, but for six weeks she could not leave

her home. " I felt I had failed my son, failed my family, failed

myself. And, having lost a child, I didn't feel I could cope with the

one I had. " It was six months before she could return to work.

In that difficult time, they received support from the Stillborn and

Neonatal Death Society (SANDS), a charity set up by grieving parents.

Through SANDS Sue met other people who made her feel less of a

" freak " .

When she decided not to leave her son, , an only child,

SANDS friends helped her through a pregnancy which left her " a nervous

wreck " . " With most pregnancies you are focused on the end, " she says.

" After a stillbirth you have to live one day at a time - having a

healthy baby at the end of it is your wildest dream. "

The friends understood, too, that although she was delighted by

Isabelle's birth, her daughter could not replace the son she had lost.

And so, when she felt strong enough, she started to work for SANDS.

Sue now runs the Birmingham branch of SANDS, fund-raising and

befriending people often in even more agonising situations. For some,

the still-born child was their only chance of parenthood or marked the

end of a relationship; others had to watch a frail child lose a fight

for life.

Her own worst fear was that she would forget , and she took

care to keep his memory alive. Her children chat easily of " the

accident in mummy's tummy " that deprived them of their brother, of the

candle they light for him and the tree they have planted in his memory

near their home.

Seeing something grow, in memory of a child who lost that chance, is

restorative - as Jon Stokes, another bereaved parent, knew when he

created the SANDS garden within the National Memorial Arboretum. The

first time that Sue saw it, it took her breath away and visiting it

made her mother understand for the first time the joy as well as the

grief of 's brief existence.

" Recognition is so important, " says Sue, who yesterday attended a

memorial service in the arboretum's chapel dedicated to all those lost

babies. Now, anyone can go to the garden in search of solace and even

have a tree planted nearby in their child's name.

The National Memorial Arboretum, Croxall Road, Alrewas,

Burton-upon-Trent, DE13 7AR, 01283 792333; SANDS helpline 020 7436

5881