We tragically lost our baby daughter, Mia, who was stillborn on 3rd September 2011. Mia was 8 days overdue following a normal low-risk healthy pregnancy. We’d heard Mia’s little heartbeat just a few hours before labour started and suspected nothing as we travelled to hospital, expecting to bring home our first child.
We had a meeting at the hospital during November to discuss the results of Mia’s post-mortem. The results showed that Mia’s placenta had a rare defect called 92XXXX. It had double the amount of chromosomes that it should have which caused it to degrade 5 or 6 weeks before Mia was born. Because the placenta couldn’t function properly at that stage, Mia stopped growing at the rate normally expected, meaning that she was not big enough or strong enough to cope with labour.
The consultant told us that had the lack of growth towards the end of the pregnancy been picked up as it could have, we would have been sent for a scan with the result being that Mia would have been delivered by planned cesarean section a week or two before due date. We were told that had this have happened, Mia would have been alive today. Not an easy thing to hear.
However, our tragic story is only one of thousands in the UK every year. Did you know that 17 babies are stillborn or die shortly after birth every day in the UK? That’s 6,200 per year in the UK alone. This is a shocking statistic and among the highest in the developing world. The figure is 10 times the amount of cot deaths and more than the number of people killed on the roads, yet stillbirth seems to remain taboo in today's society. By creating this page we aim, not only to raise money for the cause, but to raise awareness.
Whilst at hospital we were informed of SANDS, a national charity established by bereaved parents in 1981. They rely completely on donations.
SANDS has 3 core aims:
· Support anyone affected by the death of a baby · To work in partnership with health professionals to improve the quality of care and services offered to bereaved families · To promote research and changes in practice that could help to reduce the loss of babies' lives
SANDS is a charity we have relied heavily on during the weeks immediately after Mia’s death and we still continue to rely on their support.
Please help us raise vital and much needed funds for this worthy cause - we're extremely grateful for any kind of donation as well as the messages of support which we are hugely appreciative of. A donation of a pound or two will buy a blanket for parents to wrap their child in during the brief hours they will share together, and enable them to bring something home.
Thank you all for supporting us and taking the time to visit our page.
Hema and Martin
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