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Welcome

This Padlet brings together information, resources, and services that may be helpful to you. We hope it offers you some comfort, guidance, and support as you navigate your grief

How to use it:

Gently scroll across the top to find the topic that feels most relevant to you.
Then scroll down to explore supportive content, links, and services related to that area.

Take things at your own pace — there is no right or wrong way to use this padlet. We are thinking of you and will guide you along the way.

Sharon & Sadie

Specialist Bereavement Midwives

Julie

Maternity Administrator

Darent Valley Hospital, Darenth Wood Rd, Dartford,Kent,

DA2 8DA

Blossom Maternity Team

Mobile : 07399 316484

Office :01322 428755

Email: dgn-tr.dvhmaternitybereavement@nhs.net

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The Worst Girl Gang Ever - Support for Miscarriage + Baby Loss

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Welcome to The Worst Girl Gang Ever – a support platform and podcast for miscarriage and baby loss. Founded by Bex and Laura, best selling authors and award winning podcast hosts, TWGGE offers a community to support you through the storm of baby loss and onwards in your journey.

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Baby Loss Support For Fathers | Dad Still Standing

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Dad Still Standing is a place for dads who have suffered baby loss to find support. Our podcast, advice, guidance, and tools support dads through their grief journey. Created by two dads who have both lost babies, Dad Still Standing is offered by dads, for dads, in a way grieving dads can relate.

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Gardens of Peace | Muslim Cemeteries | Serving Greater London

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Registered charity and non-profit making organisation serving the Muslim community in Greater London. Elmbridge Road, Hainault and Five OaksLane, Chigwell.

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Families from within the LGBTQ+ community share their experiences of baby and pregnancy loss, including from the perspective of birth partners.

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We’re here to provide information and support for anyone who has experienced a miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death or termination for medical reasons.

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Podcast - Making Miracles Baby Loss Charity in England

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Podcast - Join us as we share stories, insights, and support for those who have experienced the pain of baby loss.

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Our 20th Anniversary Year

Since our official opening twenty years ago, the Arboretum has grown into an inspirational living landscape where families, friends and comrades can celebrate lives lived and remember lives lost. Find out more about how we are marking our anniversary by clicking the button below.

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Since our official opening twenty years ago, the Arboretum has grown into an inspirational living landscape where families, friends and comrades can celebrate lives lived and remember lives lost. Find out more about how we are marking our anniversary by clicking the button below.

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Sands - Stillbirth and neonatal death charity

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Sands | Stillbirth and neonatal death charity

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Sands works to support anyone affected by the death of a baby; improve the care bereaved parents receive; and create a world where fewer babies die.

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DadsandLadsNetwork is a men’s support network set up in 2020 by bereaved father Ross Coniam from Watford. Ross’ daughter Norah sadly died in May 2018 just 9 hours after birth. Since 2019 Ross has been raising money and awareness for baby loss & mental health charities through his #Nine4Norah campaign. After losing Norah, Ross soon […]

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Welcome to Abigail's Footsteps... We are a baby loss charity providing support and counselling for bereaved parents and families as well as specialist bereavement training for midwives and healthcare professionals. Since 2010, we have worked to improve the way bereaved parents are cared for by hospitals and to better educate midwives on how to care for grieving parents.

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If your pregnancy ends before 24 weeks, you can get a certificate in memory of your baby. It's free to get a certificate.

You do not need to request a certificate if you prefer not to. It's optional.

The certificate is not a legal document - for example you cannot use it to claim benefits. The certificate will not be added to your GP record.

If your pregnancy ends from 24 weeks onwards, you need to register a stillbirth instead.

Before you start

You'll need:

your NHS number or postcode registered with your GP

the mobile phone number or email address registered with your GP

permission from the other parent and their email address, if you want their name on the certificate

You can find out your NHS number on the NHS website.

Request a certificate

You can ask for a certificate if all these apply:

you've lost a baby before the 24th week of pregnancy

you're one of the baby's parents or surrogate

you're at least 16 years old

your pregnancy ended on or after 1 September 2018

you lived in England when you lost your baby

you live in England

If you've lost more than one pregnancy, you can apply separately to get a certificate for each baby loss.

Your certificate should arrive in the post within 14 days. If you do not receive it, you can request another certificate.

Get help to request a certificate

If you want your certificate in a different format or cannot request the certificate online, email or call the helpline.

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If your pregnancy ends before 24 weeks, you can get a free certificate in memory of your baby.

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Support for African & Caribbean Communties

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Support for African & Caribbean Communties

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Sands - Saving babies' lives. Supporting bereaved families.

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Support for African and Caribbean communities | Sands - Saving babies’ lives. Supporting bereaved families.

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We are so sorry that you find yourself here, but we are very glad you’ve found us. Pregnancy and baby loss affects all communities, but we know that some can face additional barriers when looking for support. That’s why we have created a safe space for black parents, family members and others. Sands is here to support you for as long as you need and support is available in many different ways.

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Sands - Saving babies' lives. Supporting bereaved families.

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Baby loss affects all communities; however, we understand baby loss can be looked upon differently within individual communities and this can lead to additional barriers when looking for support. Bereaved parents from South Asian communities have told us about the stigma, taboo and isolation that can be associated with baby loss.

We recognise the need for greater engagement and tailored support for South Asian parents, family members and others to be able to turn to. That is why we have created this dedicated safe, and confidential space for you, for as long as you need us, and no matter how much time has passed since your loss. We are here for you and our support is available in many ways.

"While we were supported, we also had people say, 'It is God's will, you will have another', 'It is better it happened now than later in his life', 'at least he died before you got to know him', the list is endless."

The words of a bereaved South Asian mother

The Sands National Helpline provides a safe and confidential place for anyone who has been affected by the death of a baby. Whether your baby died long ago or recently, we are here for you. The team are available to speak to on the telephone from 10am to 3pm Monday to Friday and 6pm to 9pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Please note we are not open during bank holidays unless stated on the website.

The telephone helpline is free to call from landlines and mobiles on 0808 164 3332.

You can also email the team at helpline@sands.org.ukor download our Bereavement Support flyer for South Asian families and communities.

If you have suffered baby loss and require support or want to know more about our work and how to get involved, please get in touch with Madhuri Bedi, who is our dedicated Bereavement Support Services Officer for baby loss within South Asian communities at madhuri.bedi@sands.org.uk

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Support for South Asian communities | Sands - Saving babies' lives. Supporting bereaved families.

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We are so sorry that you find yourself here, but we are very glad you've found us. Baby loss affects all communities; however, we understand baby loss can be looked upon differently within individual communities and this can lead to additional barriers when looking for support.

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When a baby dies shortly before, during or after birth, or at any stage in pregnancy, the shock and grief are profound. It's not the natural order of things and death from birth feels so wrong.

The isolation of baby loss

If someone dies later in life their loved ones have shared memories and reminiscences which bring comfort and time to remember.

When a baby dies, if it was an early loss or miscarriage not everyone may know that you were pregnant. This can make it harder to say "Oh I was pregnant by the way, but now I'm not". How do you start a conversation like that and not then have to manage the other person's responses?

Or perhaps you left work and had a wonderful send off with gifts and flowers, and then have to share the news that actually your baby didn't make it and was stillborn or died neonatally. Then at some point you need to return to work.

Perhaps you spent time with your baby in a special bereavement suite and made memories with them, but other family members and friends may not have met them.

All of these scenarios can contribute to the feelings of intense isolation and disbelief around the loss of your baby.

Baby Loss Awareness Week

We have an intense need to make meaning of something so profound and this is something that Baby Loss Awareness Week provides and Sands do all year round.

The week offers a chance to share stories with other bereaved parents, raise awareness with policy-makers and enable the parent voice to be heard in research and within society.

Planting trees in memory, raising funds so no-one has to go through the same thing, lobbying parliaments, or arranging remembrance events are all helpful in creating that legacy.

Supporting someone when a baby dies

As someone supporting a bereaved family there is lots you can do to help. Asking someone what they want and how they'd like you to support or remember their baby are good first steps.

Remember dates. Remember special dates and missed milestones - when the baby was due, his or her birthday.

Practical help. Offer practical help in the early days. It can be better to make specific suggestions than just asking 'is there anything I can do?'.

Ask and listen. Parents may want to talk about their baby - you could ask about them, what they looked like, who they took after.

Say their name. Just saying their name can be a powerfully supportive thing to do.

Finding support

Sands is there to support anyone affected by the death of a baby. Sands' free Helpline is available on 0808 164 3332 10am to 3pm Monday to Friday and 6-9pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. You can also email [email protected] for support.

Cruse is also able to support those who have lost a baby. Find out about our support

Some other organisations who can help are given on our signposting page.

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Grief when a baby dies - Cruse Bereavement Support

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This Baby Loss Awareness Week, Jen Coates, Director of Bereavement Support for the charity Sands, talks about the shock and grief when a baby dies before, during or shortly after birth.

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Making Miracles Registered Charity - Baby Trauma & Bereavement Care

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Making Miracles is a registered charity supporting families of high risk pregnancies, premature babies and baby loss. Baby Trauma & Bereavement Care.

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**The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller** Dear Reader, When I found myself experiencing a motherhood that I never expected, one that I was terrified of living, I didn't know how I would carry on being 'normal'. I didn't know how much I would long for people to say my son Teddy's name, to not treat him like he didn't exist. Maybe you're in this boat too, or maybe you want to support someone who is? Whatever your reason, I hope our story goes a little way to help. Love, Elle What do you do when the unthinkable happens? Ask Me His Name is a moving account of Elle's pregnancy, Teddy's life, and what happens when a mother leaves a hospital with empty arms. In the UK, 1 in 4 pregnancies end in premature death, but conversations about the heartbreakingly frequent issue of baby loss are few and far between. In this honest, beautifully written and hopeful exploration of a different kind of mothering, Elle explores how she navigated a parenthood that no one had prepared her for.* A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to Tommy's charity. Reg. (1060508) *

Elle Wright had an admittedly easy pregnancy - her scans went well, she and her baby were healthy throughout, and in May 2016, she and her husband welcomed their son, Teddy, into the world.

Just a few hours after giving birth, they woke to find a nurse holding a cold and unresponsive Teddy, who had stopped breathing during the night. The happiest day of Elle's life had turned into every parent's worst nightmare, and she had to let her beautiful baby boy go. Three days after delivering him into the world, Elle sat with Teddy in her arms as he took his last breaths, and tucked him in for the final time.

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Ask Me His Name: Learning to live and laugh again after the loss of my baby

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Buy Ask Me His Name: Learning to live and laugh again after the loss of my baby by Wright, Elle (ISBN: 9781788700344) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

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Waves is a beautiful book about baby loss, mental health and the role that the ocean and nature can play in helping bereaved parents come to terms with grief.

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The Worst Girl Gang Ever: 2022's new guide to recovery after miscarriage and baby loss with guidance from experts in mindfulness, grief, therapy and relationships.

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The Worst Girl Gang Ever: 2022's new guide to recovery after miscarriage and baby loss with guidance from experts in mindfulness, grief, therapy and relationships. : Gunn, Bex, Buckingham, Laura: Amazon.co.uk: Books

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When my baby died my whole world changed forever. I was left full of love, yet deeply heartbroken and faced with the task of living without my most precious longed for treasure. Following a fraught journey of trying to conceive again, two subsequent miscarriages, and an anxiety fuelled pregnancy after loss, I was finally able to welcome my baby girl into the world. This is the book I wish I'd been given - it will help you to not only survive the loss of your baby but to celebrate the life they had, no matter how brief. This is my hard won gift to you.

Losing a child is one of the most devastating events you can go through and yet, losing your baby - particularly before they are born - remains a taboo and often misunderstood topic. In this very gentle guide, Nicola Gaskin opens up the conversation around baby loss offering raw, honest and deeply empathetic support to all parents.

From coping with the initial shock, finding ways to overcome jealousy and anger, surviving birthdays and Mother's Day, through to living with everlasting grief and the fresh round of grief and anxiety that comes with parenting after loss, it will help you to navigate through a huge range of intense and complex emotions.

Beautifully written and powerfully illustrated, this book will hold your hand through your darkest and lightest moments: read it to know you are not alone and that
For all parents and family managing the emotional battlefield of baby loss.
all your feelings are absolutely valid.

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Life After Baby Loss: A Companion and Guide for Parents

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Buy Life After Baby Loss: A Companion and Guide for Parents Illustrated by Gaskin, Nicola, Leinad, Nora (ISBN: 9781785042027) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

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Written by one of the world's leading baby loss support experts, The Baby Loss Guide is designed to help you navigate this complex issue. Whether you have personally encountered loss, or are supporting people through this harrowing time, this book provides practical and compassionate advice.

Zoe and her husband Andy have personally faced the loss of five babies. Out of their experiences came the charity The Mariposa Trust (more often known by its primary division Saying Goodbye), offering support to thousands of grieving parents and relatives around the world each week. In her first bestselling book Saying Goodbye Zoe wrote a moving account of their experiences and how they found a way through loss.

In The Baby Loss Guide Zoe provides a supportive and practical guide to walk people through their darkest days of suffering and gives them hope for the future. The first half of the book answers the many questions those who encounter loss ask themselves and others, and until now have resulted in people spending hours exploring the internet to gain answers and insight. It is interlaced with personal stories from both men and women who have been there, and tackles the many myths, taboos and assumptions around loss. It also provides clear guidance and advice on how to navigate life following your world imploding, such as: How do I return to work? How do I know if or when I should try again for more children? How do I communicate with my partner about loss?

The second half of the book offers 60-days of practical and compassionate support. Whether someone's loss be recent or historic, this support will be a wonderful gift, and will help the person walk the scary path of grief. Zoe's friendly and down to earth approach means she removes the often over used medical terminology, and this makes The Baby Loss Guide readable, easy to absorb and a vital source of information and help.

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The Baby Loss Guide: Practical and compassionate support with a day-by-day resource to navigate the path of grief

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Buy The Baby Loss Guide: Practical and compassionate support with a day-by-day resource to navigate the path of grief by Clark-Coates, Zoë (ISBN: 9781409185437) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

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I'll start by telling you a story. I'm telling it to you so you know what happened. I'm also telling it to you because it helps me to tell it. And because it helps me, I am saying that if anything like this has happened to you, it may well help you to do the same: to tell your story. You can do this in any way you like. The important thing is to tell it.

The story begins at Paddington Station in 1999. From there, I ring home to see if my son Eddie is in. He's nearly 19. Sometimes he's there and sometimes he stays with his girlfriend. If he's not there, I might go and visit someone else. If he is there, I'll go home and we can have a chat.

It turns out that he is at home. But he's not feeling too good, he says. A bit of a headache. I tell him to take some paracetamol and I'll be home in about an hour. Sure enough, I'm home in about an hour. He doesn't seem too bad. Must be one of those things my mother used to call "a chill", I think. I tell him that I've worked a thing into my show for children where I tell them a story about when he was a funny, naughty toddler, then, I say, I follow it with a story about how he grew and grew and grew until, as he is now, he became bigger than me. And something else: now he can pick me up and whirl me round and round until I shout, "Put me down, Eddie! Put me down, Eddie!" It works. To little children, as I mime the contrast between chasing after the naughty little toddler Eddie and being swung through the air by the giant Eddie, it seems miraculous that one day they could be bigger than me. I think it's a miracle too. Eddie seems to enjoy the story.

He doesn't go to bed. We sit in the living room. He's written a play and we talk about how we could get some people together to do a kind of acted-out reading. He stretches out on the sofa - he really is bigger than me - and says that he feels a bit weird. I feel his head. It's hot. I remind him that he can alternate between paracetamol and ibuprofen and line up the boxes for him, warning him not to overdo the dose.

He says he's going to bed now, but he'll have some ice-cream first. I ask him if his neck is stiff. It's something I've done with the children for the previous few years since meningitis has come up on the radar. No, he says, he doesn't have a stiff neck.

Someone's sent me a book of riddles that's just come out. I've got it because a riddle I've written is in the book. I read it to him. He gets it. It's daft. The answer, he says, is "your bum". Those are the last words that I ever heard him say.

When I go to bed, I put my head round the door. He's lying on his back in bed. "You OK?" I ask. He nods without making a sound. I check that he's got the paracetamol, ibuprofen and a glass of water by his bed and then I go to my room and turn in.

In the night, I hear him get up and go to the loo. I have a feeling of irritation that I'm awake. I've got to get up early and I don't want to feel tired. I fall back asleep.

I've got to get on the road pretty early so I'm up at six. I pop my head round the door to check how he's been in the night. "I've got to go, Edz," I say. "I know it's early." I remind him to double-lock the door on his way out. He doesn't answer. I feel his head. It's cold. He's still. Unnervingly still. I nudge him. He feels like a rock. There's no movement, no life. I know - but don't know - that he's dead. I shake him, shouting out to him, "Eddie! Eddie!" There's no reply. I rush to get the phone, ring 999, ask for "Ambulance". I describe what's happened.

"Pull him out of the bed," the voice says, "pull him on to the floor, lie him on his side."

I grab hold of him, and do what I'm told. It's hard. He weighs more than me. As I pull him, I see that his arm is stiff, at an angle, as if it's in a plaster without any plaster on it. His armpit has strange red stripes. I get him on to the floor, and when I lie him on his side, a bit of pale red fluid comes out of his mouth on to the carpet.

I get back on the phone, I tell them what I've done and what I've seen.

The voice says, "We'll be there in a few minutes."

I'm alone with Eddie in the room. I think he's dead. I know he's dead. I think that the ambulance people will come and they'll do something that will make him come alive.

I don't remember the next few minutes. I remember at one point thinking or saying, "Why have you done this, Eddie?" as if he had done this thing to me. I'm almost ashamed to admit it, though. Why or how could I have thought at that moment that I was in any way involved in him getting whatever it was that had killed him? I guess it's part of how we see the death of those we love: we see them withdrawing their love from us. If ever, in our past, people withdrew their love from us as some kind of punishment, then someone dying can feel like that too.

The ambulance people call, I let them in, they dash upstairs, their bulky uniforms filling the space. They kneel over Eddie, and in a few seconds, one of them says, "He's dead."

It emerges that what's killed him is meningitis, or to be more precise, meningococcal septicaemia. I think of the posters I've seen at the GP surgery. Headache, fever, stiff neck, sickness, rash - do the test to see if the rash stays even when you press it with a glass. He had no rash, I say to myself. I didn't see a rash. He didn't see a rash. People fill the house, turning up with food and cards. We try to comfort each other. They sit and talk.

How do you get better from something as total and as devastating as this? If I can magnify the pain once more, I'll say this: Eddie had become one of those people in a family who is a pivot. There are different parts to a "blended" family or "network" family (siblings with different mothers or fathers), so one sibling might not link up with another part very closely. There may be ways in which one sibling chafes against another. Eddie had stood at some centre point where all the siblings pivoted around him. He was the one person equally beloved of all of them. He could sit on the sofa between two who were angry with each other and they would each be happy to snuggle up with him and joke with him. I had thought it was magical. I didn't know how he did it. I cherished it more than anything else in the world. And now there was a hole. There was a gap on the sofa. How would I cope with it?

What follows is not a menu. It's not a prescription. I know better than many that being told how to mourn is one of the most irritating things in the world. We each have to find our own ways of doing it. We can watch what others do, listen to what people say, but in the end we have to make it work for whoever we are and whatever life situation we're in. And there's another thing: by making it your own, you have the sense that it's you doing it, you're the "agent". You can take pride in your own ability to do something in the face of the impossible. Just following someone else's plan won't do that for you.

So I offer you what I did as a set of things to think about, ignore, adapt, change, or do what you want with. I hope they give you ideas for what you might want to do if you're faced with loss or grief. Just that.

I spent a long time finding out about meningitis. I was desperate that this "thing" shouldn't sit in my mind like a mysterious phantom that had appeared in the night and sucked the lifeblood out of my son. I wanted to know all that doctors know.

How did that help? It put what had happened into the context of the human race. It showed that Eddie's death wasn't just or only something that had happened to me, to his family, to his friends. It was something that happened to the human race and was part of the human story. We live with bacteria. Bacteria live with us. This is how it's been for millions of years. We evolve with each other. The death of Eddie was a moment when the bacterium was so successful it failed: it killed its host and then died with it. To know these things helped me, and still does. It's the only way I can make sense of it. Any other way feels to me senseless. I don't believe in a fate or destiny that governs us. I don't believe that it's the will of a being outside life on Earth. I don't even think any kind of "will" comes into it. It's biology.

I also wanted to know about other people who had died of meningitis. That's because I didn't want to feel alone with this thing. And I wanted to know how people were coping with losing someone in this way. Who? Where? When? How? The internet had just got going. In fact, the computer I had was entirely down to Eddie. He had helped me choose it, set it up and had played games on it. Now I searched and made contact with others who had lost loved ones with meningitis.

I particularly wanted to know of nearly-19-year-olds. I wanted to know that I wasn't unique in having missed that it was meningococcal septicaemia. I felt lonelier than I had ever felt before when I thought of myself going into his room and finding him dead or if I thought of myself as the only person in the world who had done that. That's a nearly unbearable thing to feel. I found out, of course, that I wasn't alone in that experience either.

More personally, Eddie's mother and I decided to go to Paris. I'm not sure how or why that idea evolved. Perhaps it was the kind offer of one of my oldest friends, François, who I first met when I was a teenager. It seemed to make sense to talk to each other away from other people, in a place that was full of sights and smells that we both liked. There was no way that we were going to start up a relationship again. It wasn't like that. For me, it was to do with trust and solidarity in the face of the fact that we both adored Eddie and were now utterly bereft.

François had just taken on a flat in Montparnasse, it was empty, newly painted and polished. All it had was a table, chairs and a couple of beds. It was hollow and echoey. The lights from the street decorated the walls.

In the daytime, we walked about randomly looking at street markets, buildings, the river. We weren't revisiting a place we had shared. If anything, it was new. I have no idea why all this felt soothing to me but it did. One time, we walked past the entrance to the Montparnasse cemetery. Neither of us knew at that moment what kind of cemetery it was but on a whim, we decided to walk in. In fact, it's one of Paris's two huge secular cemeteries, full of monuments to some of France's most famous people - or indeed, people from other countries who've died in France. Walking about among them was a strange relief. I think it made me think of Eddie as gone and now in some way in the company of the dead. I don't believe in the afterlife, so what I mean is that just as there were monuments and stones there, with people visiting them, so I was already beginning to make monuments and inscriptions in my head. Not real ones. Not even blueprints for one that we might make. The imagined place in my head, the place that was Eddie, was like one of the tombstones in the cemetery.

Because we had no guide or plan, we randomly and pleasingly "met" the historic figures there, people we knew from our studies or interests: the poet Charles Baudelaire ; the feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir ; the singer Serge Gainsbourg , whose stone was littered with cigarettes in a kind of tribute; Guy de Maupassant , whose stories I had read in my French class; the surrealist couple Juliet and , whose inscription was: "Unconcerned but not indifferent". What did that mean?; and hundreds more. This may sound strange, but it felt friendly. The word "companionable" came to mind. I felt like I was in good "company".

At one point, by a high wall, we came across a woman crying. There were flowers and photos on the grave. We stood with her. She spoke to me. She said that the grave was for her son but I noticed that she could hardly speak through her crying. I said that we had just lost our son too. I told her it was an illness. She said that her son died in an accident. When? I asked her. Ten years before, she said. A wave of feeling came over me. The moment she said that, I felt a mix of sorrow and fright. It was desperately sad that this woman was so consumed by grief, but it frightened me that she was this sad so long after the event. I then thought something that may seem heartless. I said to myself - I most certainly didn't say it out loud - "I don't want to be like her in 10 years' time."

To tell the truth, I was afraid that I would be. I felt like her in that very moment, my mind full of Eddie, thinking every minute about not having him there, and knowing that I would never have him there again. I felt like this woman sounded. But would I feel like that in a year's time? Ten years' time? I hoped not. I wished the poor woman well and walked on.

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Getting Better: Life lessons on going under, getting over it, and getting through it

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Getting Better: Life lessons on going under, getting over it, and getting through it eBook : Rosen, Michael: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

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Those who follow us on or who pay extra close attention to our sidebar (over to the right, silly!) may already know about the What's Your Grief Podcast-otherwise known as ' gabbing about grief,' 'chatting about coping,' and ' gossiping with the grief gals.'

On WYG's second birthday, we told you that-among other things-our mission for the next two years is to ensure there's support for all types of grievers. We know the ways in which grievers learn and the things they find helpful differ across the board and, with a world of technology available, it no longer makes sense to limit grief support to talk therapy and the written word.

The What's Your Grief Podcast is our first effort in providing grievers with more diverse options for grief support. The podcast can be found through our page and through Apple Podcasts, , and . Of course you can listen to all our existing episodes below, but-if you're interested in keeping up with the What's Your Grief Podcast- we strongly encourage you subscribe on one of these platforms. We would be infinitely grateful to anyone who writes us a review or rates the podcast while there, because this will help us connect with grievers who are already looking for support through the podcast platform.

If you have questions about the podcast or any of its content, please feel free to comment below or on the episode's individual show notes page. You can also send us an email at whatsyourgrief@gmail.com.

Dating a Widower and Other Topics

Grief in Six Words and Other Topics

Loneliness in Grief and Other Topics

How Attitudes About Death Impact Grief

Understanding the Difference Between Support and Comfort

Parenting While Grieving

Dealing with Valentine's Day After a Death

Expanding Our Understanding of Grief

Thinking About New Year's Resolutions

Your Questions About Holiday Grief Answered

The Guilt of Feeling Better and Living Life After a Loss

The Continuum of Negative Coping

Going Back to School After a Death

Milestones and Weddings After a Death

Locating Grief Support Locally and Beyond

Maintaining Relationships After a Death

Guilt and Regret in Grief

Supporting a Grieving Teenager

Handling Your Loved One's Belongings

12 Ways Grief Makes You Feel Crazy

All About Grief Friends

Continuing Bonds with Deceased Loved Ones

Grief and Special Days

Getting Realistic About Gratitude

Understanding Secondary Loss

Using Your Support System Effectively

Mastering Grief Triggers

Understanding the Five Stages of Grief

Extroverts and Grief

Introverts and Grief

Identifying Your Coping Style

Surviving the Grief of an Overdose

A Grief-Movie Review: Wild

Misconceptions About Grief

SWhen Condolences Go Wrong: What Not to Say to a Griever

Grief and the Holidays
Subscribe.
We post a new article to What's Your Grief about once a week. Subscribe to stay up to date on all our posts.

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What's Your Grief Podcast - A Podcast about Life After Loss

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Our mission is to ensure there's support for all types of grievers. We know that not everyone wants to read about grief... so, enter our new grief podcast.

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Death is an inevitable part of life, and yet it can be difficult and uncomfortable to talk about the process of grief amongst one’s peers. In this podcast, comedian Jordon Ferber helps shine some light into the darkest parts of our own existence and encourage a more open discussion about the effects of grief, and offers coping mechanisms to those suffering.

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Griefcast is a podcast that examines the human experience of grief and death - but with comedians, so it's cheerier than it sounds. Griefcast is hosted by Cariad Lloyd, edited by Kate Holland, recorded remotely in Cariad's living room, artwork is by Jayde Perkin, stop motion social media clips by Alice Loveday and the music is provided by The Glue Ensemble.

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When you're grieving, listening to other people's experiences can be a real comfort. Podcasts on grief and bereavement come in a variety of formats and styles ranging from insightful interviews with psychotherapists to funny discussions with comedians.

The podcast format allows longer in-depth conversations than you often find on radio and television. You might also find that find listening to podcasts doesn't take as much concentration as reading. This can be really helpful if you're finding it hard to focus.

Podcasts to help with grief and loss

1. Griefcast

Griefcast describes itself as 'funny people talking about death'. Hosted by Cariad Lloyd, it is a highly engaging and often funny podcast series in which Cariad talks to her fellow comedians and performers about loss.

2. Terrible, thanks for asking

Host Nora McIrney's husband died in 2014. His obituary went viral and Nora received lots of messages from strangers going through something hard. Nora decided to use these messages to create the first season of 'Terrible, Thanks For Asking'. The intention is to get past the "how are you?" "I'm fine!" small talk and get right into the heart of the hard things in life.

3. Grief encounters

A weekly podcast that hopes to open up the conversation around loss and create a modern platform for people to share their own experiences, and start an open dialogue around the subject of death and all that comes with it.

4. NPR Grief for beginners: 5 Things to know about processing loss

This is a one off episode of NPR's Life Kit podcast series in which Terri Daniel who's 16 year old son died in 2006, talks through five strategies to help you cultivate a healthy relationship with grief.

5. Grief works

Hosted by Julia Samuel - a grief psychotherapist with over twenty five years' experience of working with the bereaved - this podcast has stories from those who have experienced great love and loss - and survived.

6. The art of dying well

This podcast series from University of St Mary's aim to make death and dying something we can talk about openly without discomfort or fear.

7. Bereavement room

Bereavement Room is a safe space for people of colour to tell their stories of grief and loss. It's hosted by Callsuma Ali, and guests discuss how grief effects us culturally, the discrimination that happens, inequality and the lack of understanding about how grief might manifest itself within the diaspora.

8. On the Marie Curie couch

On the Marie Curie couch features well-known guests who open up and share their experiences of grief and death in a therapeutic conversation with Marie Curie bereavement expert, Jason Davidson.

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When you're grieving, listening to other people's experiences can be a real comfort. Podcasts on grief and bereavement come in a variety of formats and styles ranging from insightful interviews with psychotherapists to funny discussions with comedians. The podcast format allows longer in-depth conversations than you often find on radio and television.

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The Other Mothers Podcast is hosted by friends Elle, Caro and Jen who speak candidly about their experiences of baby loss and invite guests to share their stories too.

About the hosts:

Caro Tasker runs The Spikey, a neurodivergent space/community as an autistic ally and educator. An ardent ambassador for neonatal research in memory of her son Freddie, the funds raised so far have made one of the biggest impacts on preterm labour in almost 60 years.
Caro can be found on instagram as @spikey.

Elle Wright is a blogger and The Sunday Times Bestselling author of Ask Me His Name and A Bump In the Road. Writing about the loss of her son, Teddy, who died at 3 days old in 2016, Elle has been instrumental in opening up the conversation around pregnancy and child loss to the media. You can find her writing at featheringtheemptynest.co.uk or as @feathering_the_empty_nest on Instagram where she shares life, loss, laughs and much more.

Jen Reid is the Co-Founder of Teddy's Wish, a charity that funds potentially life-saving research into the causes of baby loss and provides bereavement counselling for grieving families. The charity was set up by Jen and her husband Chris in July 2014 to honour the memory of their baby boy Eddie who they lost to SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) when he was only three months old. Jen can be found on instagram as teddys_wish

The Other Mothers Podcast is published by Teddy's Wish www.teddyswish.org

If you are a bereaved parent and would like support or if you have any other questions please feel free to contact us at Teddy's Wish: support@teddyswish.org

The Other Mothers Podcast is hosted by friends Elle, Caro and Jen who speak candidly about their experiences of baby loss and invite guests to share their stories too.

About the hosts:

Caro Tasker runs The Spikey, a neurodivergent space/community as an autistic ally and educator. An ardent ambassador for neonatal research in memory of her son Freddie, the funds raised so far have made one of the biggest impacts on preterm labour in almost 60 years.
Caro can be found on instagram as @spikey.

Elle Wright is a blogger and The Sunday Times Bestselling author of Ask Me His Name and A Bump In the Road. Writing about the loss of her son, Teddy, who died at 3 days old in 2016, Elle has been instrumental in opening up the conversation around pregnancy and child loss to the media. You can find her writing at featheringtheemptynest.co.uk or as @feathering_the_empty_nest on Instagram where she shares life, loss, laughs and much more.

Jen Reid is the Co-Founder of Teddy's Wish, a charity that funds potentially life-saving research into the causes of baby loss and provides bereavement counselling for grieving families. The charity was set up by Jen and her husband Chris in July 2014 to honour the memory of their baby boy Eddie who they lost to SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) when he was only three months old. Jen can be found on instagram as teddys_wish

The Other Mothers Podcast is published by Teddy's Wish www.teddyswish.org

If you are a bereaved parent and would like support or if you have any other questions please feel free to contact us at Teddy's Wish: support@teddyswish.org

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The Other Mothers Podcast is hosted by friends Elle, Caro and Jen who speak candidly about their experiences of baby loss and invite guests to share their stories too. About the hosts: Caro Tasker runs The Spikey, a neurodivergent space/community as an autistic ally and educator. An ardent ambass...

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Welcome to the gang. The one you never asked to be a part of.

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Army Wife
Death by suicide has long been a problem within the U.S. military, and not just among veterans: In 2020, suicide rates among active duty service members hit a six-year high. On August 28th, 2015, Heather's husband Tyler became one of those statistics. Theirs is a story of friendship, of love, of family, of service and duty ... and of trauma, domestic abuse and mental illness.

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Army Wife Death by suicide has long been a problem within the U.S. military, and not just among veterans: In 2020, suicide rates among active duty service members hit a six-year high. On August 28th, 2015, Heather's husband Tyler became one of those statistics.

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DadSpace | Supporting Mens Mental Health

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DadSpace facilitates Brotherly Support Between Fathers by providing opportunities to talk, listen and share personal experiences of fatherhood.

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Sands - Saving babies' lives. Supporting bereaved families.

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We know that it can be a struggle to talk about how you're feeling after the death of a baby. We hope that by building trust and a common bond, by playing together as a team, many more will be able to break the silence about baby loss and help others to do the same.
Find out how you can get involved below.

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Sands United | Sands - Saving babies' lives. Supporting bereaved families.

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Sands United is a unique way for bereaved men to come together through a shared love of sport, find a support network, and feel at ease talking about their grief when they're ready. We know that it can be a struggle to talk about how you're feeling after the death of a baby.

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Forever Finley Charity Team Kent. 84 likes. Amateur Sports Team

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Daddys with Angels

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Home | Daddy's With Angels | Bereavement Support

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Daddy's with Angels (DWA) are an international charity providing support and guidance to all family members affected by the loss of a child at any age or gestation and by any cause. DWA deliberately target support for bereaved dads due to the lack of available Male support across the sector.

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Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

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Our Supporting Arms telephone and email support service is run by bereaved parents and gives you the opportunity to talk to someone who has an understanding of what you're going through.

We hope to bridge the gap between you receiving an Aching Arms comfort bear and finding specialist support and we're here for you whether you lost your baby recently or some years ago. We don't want you to have to go through your loss alone, whether you want to share memories of your baby with us or talk about how you're feeling. You can also ask for suggestions regarding funeral arrangements, significant date anniversaries, returning to work or anything else. We are here to help so don't hesitate to contact us by phoning or texting 07464 508994 or by emailing support@achingarms.co.uk.

Supporting Arms is a flexible call back service open to anyone in the UK. When you call, you'll be taken to a voicemail for you to leave your name and phone number and we'll then contact you within 48 hours, to arrange a convenient time to talk.

Please note:

This is not an emergency service, if you need to speak to someone urgently please contact one of these organisations:

Phone Samaritians on 116 123 or alternatively Text 'Shout' to 85258.

If you need our help, please call us now on: 07464 508994 or email support@achingarms.co.uk

Click here to download our Aching Arms general leaflet (PDF) or here for the leaflet in Welsh (PDF).

Click here to download our Aching Arms parent leaflet (PDF) or here for the leaflet in Welsh (PDF).

Supporting Arms for Dads

Sometimes Dads who have lost their baby need the opportunity to talk with other Dads who have gone through a similar experience. Aching Arms offers a monthly online group just for Dads, offering the chance to gain support and comfort from speaking to others. The group is facilitated by Tom Donaldson, a bereaved Dad and member of our Supporting Arms Team. All Dads are welcome and please note, you are free to share as much or as little as you would like.

Our Supporting Arms For Dads meetings are held on the first Monday of each month at 7:30pm (excluding August and December) and to get the Microsoft Teams link for each meeting please contact dadsupport@achingarms.co.uk. We also have a telephone helpline just for dads who would like to speak 1;1 to another bereaved dad, the number for this is 07754 436133.

Our Guide for Bereaved Dads

You may have come home from the hospital with our dads guide 'You are a dad.... You always will be' if this is the case there are full details of all our support services for dads in the inside cover. Take your time as you go through this book, there is no rush, it is created to be dipped in and out of as you move through the first few months following the loss of your baby. At the moment we are only providing these guides via the hospitals who gift our bears as this is a new venture for Aching Arms, however, please keep an eye on this page for updates and when this changes we will let you know.

Virtual Care

If you would prefer to speak to us by video online, instead of by phone or text, you can book a video call via Teams, with our Bereavement Care Staff. Just use the link below to book a session for emotional support, practical ideas or just to see a friendly face who has walked a similar path to you.
https://calendly.com/clientcare-aching-arms/supporting-arms-virtual-care
Be Together

The Aching Arms Be Together events are an opportunity for bereaved parents, siblings and the wider family, to come together with other families who have also lost a baby. If you'd like to find out more about our Be Together events, please click here.

There is no support like the support from another bereaved parent.

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The Aching Arms telephone and email support service, Supporting Arms, is run by bereaved parents so they have an understanding of what you're going through.

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Stillbirth or miscarriage - Time off work for bereavement

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How to support an employee after a stillbirth or miscarriage and their right to time off.

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A baby who's stillborn after 24 weeks of pregnancy must by law be formally buried or cremated, although a funeral isn't legally required.

If you live in England, Wales or Scotland, your local council won't charge you fees for a standard burial or cremation of a child.

Other fees, such a funeral director, flowers and memorial, will still need to be paid.

In England, the Children's Funeral FundOpens in a new window can contribute up to £300 towards any reasonable funeral costs such as the burial fees, cremation fees and a coffin, shroud or casket.

In Wales, there's also a £500 contributionOpens in a new window towards the funeral and other related costs such as floral tributes, plaques.

If you live in England or Wales and you are getting certain benefits, you can also apply for up to £1,000 Funeral Expenses Payment to help cover some of the other reasonable costs.

In Scotland, the average payment is £1,800 for contributionOpens in a new window towards any reasonable funeral costs you need to pay for such as the funeral service or funeral car.

In Northern Ireland, you can get up to £1,000 for reasonable funeral expenses for fees or items such as funeral director's fees, flowers, coffin.

If you're not using a funeral director, you can claim for some funeral expenses. Find out more on the GOV.UK website

The coronavirus outbreak has imposed serious restrictions on funerals, which makes organising a meaningful ceremony seem difficult. Find out more about what you can do on the Quaker Social Action website

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A baby who's stillborn after 24 weeks of pregnancy must by law be formally buried or cremated, although a funeral isn't legally required. If you live in England, Wales or Scotland, your local council won't charge you fees for a standard burial or cremation of a child.

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Baby Memorial Garden Our beautiful private Baby Memorial Garden offers a serene and private space for parents seeking solace and remembrance. It’s open to parents who…

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Thank you for visiting our website. Here you will find information about our unique Ashford Baby Memorial Garden, baby memorials elsewhere in East Kent, our history, links to other support available, and information about our awareness and fundraising activities.

The Ashford Baby Memorial Garden was created in 2013 after we raised £30,000. There are baby areas within many crematoria but the Ashford Garden is unique in being right in the town centre, fully accessible and open all day, every day. It is a vibrant area designed for anyone to visit, with lovely bright plants, specially hand carved benches, and a beautiful 'teardrop' mosaic.

The Garden is managed by our volunteers (we have no staff) who regularly visit to check on litter and weeds etc, while the main maintenance and replanting itself is done by Ashford Council's Aspire team on a repayment basis.

Within the Garden we have boards with tiles remembering 400 of our special babies, with their name and a significant date. These tiles are available for a one-off cost of £40 or we can take instalments if that would help. Please click here for further details.

The Garden also helps raise awareness of the numbers of babies who die. Every day 14 babies are stillborn after 24 weeks of pregnancy, or die within their first few weeks, that is one every 100 minutes, or over 5,000 a year. A further 250,000 babies are lost to miscarriage each year - more than one in five pregnancies ends in a loss. Our garden is there to remember every one of those special babies.

Between 2013 and 2020 we ran the Garden under the umbrella of East Kent Sands charity. But we wanted more autonomy to run the Garden for all babies (irrespective of their age) and wanted to be able raise money specifically for the Garden and decided to create the new charity. We still work alongside Sands, the Miscarriage Association and other charities and do our best to signpost people to those organisations for support.

As well as the Ashford Garden, we also want to look at small baby memorial areas elsewhere in East Kent and already have talked to crematoria at Charing, Margate and Hawkinge. We have worked with the West Faversham Community Centre to create a memorial area in their garden for local families to remember their babies and are delighted that this is now open.

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In 2023 we opened a baby memorial area in Westgate Park in Canterbury which is a lovely location alongside the river. We are also talking to the council in Sittingbourne about options for a memorial area there. We put pressure on the NHS Trust to improve the baby cemetery at the back of the Canterbury Hospital and are pleased that improvements have been made.

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We are a very small charity and have to fundraise for most of our money, and this limits what we can do. But if you have any ideas about how we could remember babies in your local area please let us know.

Our wonderful Ashford Baby Memorial Garden was created in 2013 to give families a place to remember their special babies in a positive way. It is bright and welcoming, and we encourage anyone to visit.

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To find out more about the Garden, and for information on Name Tiles, please click here.

A really important part of our work is raising awareness of baby loss and giving people a safe space to talk about their losses.

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Click here for details of our awareness and fundraising activities.

If you would like to know more about volunteering with us you can find out more on the Our Volunteers page.

We offer support to local families through a range of events through the year, including Baby Loss Awareness Week and our Annual Teddy Bears Picnic. Find out more about these events and more.

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There are also many other charities offering support to anyone affected by the death of a baby. Click here for a list of organisations that can help.

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CONTACT US

Get in touch with East Kent Baby Memorial Garden volunteers to learn more about our work and how you can get involved.

Correspondence Address: c/o 36 Loudon Court, Ashford, Kent, TN23 3NE

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Thank you for visiting our website. Here you will find information about our unique Ashford Baby Memorial Garden, baby memorials elsewhere in East Kent, our history, links to other support available, and information about our awareness and fundraising activities. The Ashford Baby Memorial Garden was created in 2013 after we raised £30,000.

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This information sheet outlines rights to time off and pay if you have suffered a miscarriage, stillbirth or loss of your baby shortly after birth.
Miscarriage

If your baby is stillborn before the end of the 24 th week of pregnancy it is treated as a miscarriage. Unfortunately you cannot qualify for maternity leave or pay if you have a miscarriage.

If you need time off work following the loss of your baby you can ask your employer if they provide compassionate leave or you could ask to take annual leave or agree a period of unpaid leave.
What if I am not well enough to work following a miscarriage?
You are entitled to take sick leave if you are not well enough to work and you should follow your employer's sickness reporting procedures. If you need time off sick as a result of your miscarriage this should be treated as pregnancy-related sickness, however, it is a good idea to talk to your GP as it is up to your GP to certify whether your absence is pregnancy-related.

There is no time limit on sickness absence following a miscarriage. If your GP has certified your sickness absence as pregnancy-related, this applies for as long as your sick leave lasts.

Your employer must count any sick leave related to your pregnancy or miscarriage separately and must not use it against you, for example, for disciplinary or redundancy purposes.

You do not have to tell your employer about your miscarriage if you do not want to but any sick leave will not be protected as pregnancy-related.
Am I entitled to sick pay?
You are entitled to any sick pay that you would normally qualify for when off sick. Check your contract to see if you are entitled to contractual sick pay. If not, you can get Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) if you meet the qualifying conditions.

SSP is £116.75 per week (April 2024 - April 2025). SSP is paid by your employer once you have been off for four or more days in a row, including non-working days. You do not receive SSP for the first three waiting days.

To qualify for SSP you need to earn at least £123 a week (April 2024 - April 2025) on average in the eight weeks before your first day of absence from work. SSP is payable for up to 28 weeks.

If you are not entitled to SSP your employer should give you form SSP1. You may be able to claim new style Employment Support Allowance instead (if you have paid sufficient national insurance contributions in the past) and/or you may be able to claim Universal Credit.

You may also be able to get Universal Credit if you are on a low income or receiving SSP or new-style ESA. See Benefits below for how to claim.
My employer says that I can only count two weeks of sick leave as pregnancy-related following a miscarriage. Is that right?
It is up to your GP or medical practitioner to decide whether your sickness is related to your pregnancy or miscarriage and sick leave can be certified as pregnancy or miscarriage-related for as long as necessary.

The Equality Act 2010, section 18, provides protection against discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy or pregnancy-related sickness for a protected period of two weeks from the end of a pregnancy for women who are not entitled to maternity leave. During this period you are protected against discrimination, dismissal, redundancy or unfair treatment related to your pregnancy, miscarriage or related sick leave.

After the two week protected period you may have a claim for direct and/or indirect sex discrimination (rather than pregnancy discrimination) under the Equality Act 2010, sections 13 & 19, if you are dismissed, made redundant, disciplined or treated unfairly because of your pregnancy, miscarriage or related sick leave. You will need to consider what evidence you have to show that the unfair treatment or dismissal was related to your miscarriage or subsequent sick leave and it is important to get specialist advice as soon as possible as these can be difficult claims to bring if you have a lengthy period of sickness absence.

If you are an employee you may also have claims for unfair dismissal (if you have two years' service), detrimental treatment (which can include a range of unfair treatment) or automatic unfair dismissal on the grounds of pregnancy (including a miscarriage or related sickness absence). This protection is not limited to a specific period and applies to treatment related to pregnancy or pregnancy/miscarriage-related sickness, regardless of how long you are off sick.

You do not need to be employed for two years to bring a claim for discrimination, automatic unfair dismissal or detrimental treatment as you are protected from day one of your employment. You must contact ACAS within three months (less one day) from the date of the act or series of acts you are complaining about if you want to start a claim in an employment tribunal. For more information, see: Dealing with problems at work

Stillbirth

If you are given a stillbirth certificate you are entitled to any maternity leave and pay that you qualify this (this may be Statutory Maternity Pay, Maternity Allowance and may also include occupational maternity pay from your employer, you should check your employer's maternity policy). See below for further information on Statutory Maternity Pay and Maternity Allowance.

A stillbirth certificate will be issued where a medical professional estimates that pregnancy lasted for a full 24 weeks. A medical estimate of the length of pregnancy may be based on a number of factors including scans, examination of the foetus or counting forward from the first day of the last menstrual period.

If you were not issued with a stillbirth certificate but your baby was delivered in or after the 16 th week before the start of your expected week of childbirth you may still be entitled to maternity leave and any maternity pay that you qualify for. This was confirmed in a tribunal case supported by Maternity Action. For more information about the case, see the section below on Maternity Allowance. It is arguable that this also applies to entitlement to maternity leave and Statutory Maternity Pay for employed women.

Your partner will also be entitled to paternity leave and pay if s/he meets the normal qualifying conditions, see the section below.

You may also qualify for parental bereavement leave/pay, see below.
How to work out the end of the 24th week of pregnancy for maternity leave and pay
This is calculated as being in or after the 16 th week before the week your baby was due. To work this out find the Sunday immediately before your baby's due date or use the due date if that was a Sunday and count back 16 weeks. That is the start of the 16 th week from which you can qualify for maternity leave and pay following a stillbirth.
My baby was stillborn after the end of the 24th week of pregnancy. When does my maternity leave and pay start?
If your baby is stillborn and you have not yet started your maternity leave, your maternity leave will start on the day after your baby was stillborn.

For more information on how to give notice to your employer for maternity leave and pay, see the section below on Notice.
I had already started my maternity leave before my baby was stillborn. What happens to my maternity leave and pay?
You are still entitled to your maternity leave and pay and it is up to you to decide how long you want to stay on leave. You are entitled to 52 weeks' leave and 39 weeks' maternity pay. If you do not want to stay off work for the full 52 weeks you can give 8 weeks' notice to return to work early.

Neonatal death

If your baby died within the first 28 days of life this is considered to be a neonatal death. If your baby was born alive, at any time during your pregnancy, but did not survive, you are entitled to maternity leave, and any maternity pay that you qualify for. You may also qualify for parental bereavement leave/pay, see below.
My baby was born before my maternity leave had started but died shortly after the birth. When does my maternity leave and pay start?
Your maternity leave and any maternity pay that you qualify for will start on the day after your baby was born. It is up to you to decide how long you want to stay on leave. You are entitled to 52 weeks' leave and 39 weeks' maternity pay (if you qualify). If you do not want to stay off work for the full 52 weeks you can give 8 weeks' notice to return to work early.
I had started my maternity leave before giving birth but my baby died shortly after the birth. What happens to my maternity leave and pay?
If you had already started your maternity leave and pay, you are entitled to stay on leave and receive your maternity pay. It is up to you to decide how long you want to stay on leave. You are entitled to 52 weeks' leave and 39 weeks' maternity pay. If you do not want to stay off work for the full 52 weeks you can give 8 weeks' notice to return to work early.

Maternity leave and pay following a stillbirth or neonatal death
Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) Can I still get maternity pay if my baby is stillborn?
You are entitled to SMP or Maternity Allowance (see next section), if you meet the qualifying conditions, if your baby is stillborn after the end of the 24 th week of pregnancy. This is based on the date you delivered your baby, see above for working out the 24 th week of pregnancy.

If your baby is born alive at any time during your pregnancy but does not survive, you are also entitled to SMP or Maternity Allowance if you meet the qualifying conditions
Can I get SMP?
You can get SMP if you are an employee or worker, such as a casual or agency worker and your employer pays you through PAYE and deducts any tax or National Insurance and you meet the qualifying conditions below.

You can get SMP if your baby was stillborn (delivered after the end of the 24 th week of pregnancy) or your baby was born alive and did not survive, and:

you have been employed by the same employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before your expected week of childbirth. If your baby was born prematurely but did not survive or your baby was stillborn before the 15th week before your expected week of childbirth you can still qualify for SMP if you would have continued to have been employed up to the 15th week before the EWC.

you are still employed in the same job in all or part of the 15th week before your expected week of childbirth. You are still counted as being employed if you work full-time or part-time or if you are absent on annual leave, sick leave or furlough or you are an agency worker and no work was available that week.

you actually receive at least £123 (before tax) per week (April 2024 - April 2025) in earnings, on average in the eight weeks (if you are paid weekly) or two months (if you are paid monthly) up to the last pay day before the end of the 15th week before your baby is due. If your baby was born prematurely but did not survive or your baby was stillborn before the 15th week before your expected week of childbirth, your employer must use your average earnings for the previous eight weeks.

What is Statutory Maternity Pay?
SMP is paid for 39 weeks. SMP is paid at two rates: for the first six weeks you get 90% of your average pay.

The average is calculated from the pay you actually received in the eight weeks or two months up to the last pay day before the end of the qualifying week.

After the first six weeks SMP is paid at the flat rate of £184.03 per week (April 2024 - April 2025) for 33 weeks or 90% of your average earnings if that is less.

Your employer pays your SMP in the same way as your salary is paid. They deduct any tax and National Insurance contributions. Your employer can claim most or all of your SMP back from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
You can get SMP even if you do not plan to go back to work. You do not have to pay SMP back if you do not return to work.
SMP is not classed as public funds. If you are subject to immigration control, see the Maternity Action information sheets on immigration status: https://maternityaction.org.uk/women-from-abroad/
When will my SMP start?
If your baby was stillborn, or your baby died after birth, and you have not yet started your maternity leave and pay, your SMP period will start on the following day. You must still give your employer notice that you are now on maternity leave and wish to receive your maternity pay, see Notice below.
I don't think I will qualify for SMP?
If you are not sure if you are entitled to SMP, you should ask give your employer your notice for maternity leave and/or pay and ask your employer to work out whether you qualify. If you do not qualify for SMP your employer must give you form SMP1 to explain why and you should claim Maternity Allowance instead.

If your employer is not sure how to work out your SMP or how to claim it back, they can ring the HM Revenue & Customs Employers' Helpline on 0300 200 3200 for advice.

For more information on maternity pay, see: Maternity Pay Questions

You may also be eligible for other benefits, see Benefits below.
What earnings are used in the calculation for SMP?
Your average weekly earnings for SMP will be based on all your earnings that are subject to National

Insurance contributions. Therefore, your earnings can include overtime, commission, bonuses or other sums paid during the SMP calculation period on which National Insurance contributions are paid.

In some cases you may benefit from an increase in earnings which will increase the amount of SMP you receive or sometimes your SMP can be reduced if your earnings are lower than normal during the SMP calculation period. Unfortunately the rules on calculating SMP are very rigid and your employer will not have any discretion if your earnings are lower than normal or you were receiving Statutory Sick Pay in the SMP calculation period.

If you are concerned that your employer has not calculated your average earnings correctly you can ask your employer to check with the HMRC Employer's Helpline 0300 200 3200. They can get information on how to calculate and reclaim your SMP.

If your employer refuses to pay your SMP, calculates it incorrectly or goes into liquidation, you can telephone the HMRC Statutory Payments Disputes Team on 0300 322 9422 and ask for a formal decision. HMRC will order your employer to pay your SMP and if it is not paid, HMRC will pay your SMP directly.
My employer says I do not qualify for SMP because I was off sick during my pregnancy. What can I do?
If you received Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) during all of the weeks used to calculate your average earnings for SMP you will not have earned enough to qualify for SMP and you should claim Maternity Allowance instead. Your employer should give you form SMP1 explaining why you did not qualify for SMP.

If you received SSP during part of the period used to calculate your average earnings, your SMP may be reduced. For more information, see: Sickness during pregnancy and maternity leave

If your income is reduced you may be able to claim other benefits, see below.
Can an agency worker get SMP?
Agency workers, casual and zero hours workers can claim SMP if you are paid through PAYE with tax and National Insurance deducted at source and you meet the normal qualifying conditions.

You will be treated as having 26 weeks continuous employment even if you were unable to work because of sickness, annual leave, pregnancy or there was no work available in any particular week.

There are special rules on continuous service for temporary and seasonal workers which may allow you to count weeks when you were not working.

If you are refused SMP because of breaks in your employment record your employer should give you form SMP1. You can ask your employer to check your entitlement to SMP with the HMRC Employer's Helpline and if you disagree you can telephone the HMRC Statutory Payments Disputes Team on 0300 322 9422 and ask for a formal decision. If you cannot get SMP, you may qualify for Maternity Allowance instead.

For more information for agency workers, see: Maternity and parental rights for agency workers
What can I do if my employer does not pay SMP correctly?
If your employer has refused to pay your SMP, is paying it incorrectly or has gone into liquidation and is unable to pay it you can contact HMRC Statutory Payments Disputes Team on 0300 322 9422 and ask them to make a formal decision on your entitlement to SMP. If HMRC order your employer to pay your SMP and your employer does not pay it, HMRC will pay your SMP directly.

Maternity Allowance (MA)
Can I get MA?
You can claim MA if your baby was stillborn (delivered after the end of the 24 th week of pregnancy) or your baby was born alive and did not survive. You can apply for MA if you do not qualify for SMP, for example, if you changed jobs, your earnings are too low or you are currently unemployed.

To get MA:

you need to have been employed or self- employed for at least 26 of the 66 weeks before the expected week of childbirth, and

you can find 13 weeks (not necessarily in a row) in which you earned over £30 per week on average. You should choose the weeks in which you earned the most. You can add together earnings from more than one job. If you are self-employed, see below.

You can also claim a lower rate of MA if you are the spouse or civil partner of a self-employed person and you help in their business.
What is MA?
MA is paid by the Jobcentre Plus for 39 weeks. MA is £184.03 per week (April 2024 - April 2025) for 39 weeks or 90% of your average earnings if that is less.

If you are claiming MA as the spouse or civil partner of a self-employed person, it is payable for 14 weeks at the rate of £27 per week.

MA is not classed as public funds. If you are subject to immigration control, see the Maternity Action information sheets on immigration status: https://maternityaction.org.uk/women-from-abroad/
When will MA start?
If your baby was stillborn, or your baby died after birth, and you have not yet started your maternity leave and pay, your MA period will start on the following day. You must give your employer notice to take maternity leave and you must contact the Jobcentre Plus to ask them to start paying your MA, see Notice below.
How do I claim MA?
The earliest you can make a claim for MA is 15 weeks before your baby is due. If you have not yet applied you should make a claim as soon as possible. MA can only be backdated for a maximum of three months so you may lose some MA if you apply late.

If you are not sure if you will qualify for MA you should ask your local Jobcentre Plus for form MA1 and make a claim or phone the JobCentre Plus claim line on 0800 055 6688. They will work out whether you can get the benefit.

You can also find the MA1 claim form online here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/maternity-allowance-claim-form

If you are not entitled to MA, they should automatically use the same claim form to check whether you can get Employment and Support Allowance instead (see section below).

For more information on claiming Maternity Allowance, see: Maternity Pay Questions
What can I do if MA is refused?
You can ask the decision-maker to look at your claim again. You have 28 days to ask for a mandatory reconsideration (review) and you should get advice, see Where to do for more help below. If you are still not happy you can ask to appeal.

In a tribunal case supported by Maternity Action, DWP decided that a self-employed woman (AH) was not entitled to Maternity Allowance as a pregnancy needs to have lasted for a full 24 weeks. The hospital provided her with a certificate acknowledging the delivery of her baby and estimating that the pregnancy had lasted 23 weeks and 3 days.

Her MATB1 stated that her due date was 18/10/2022.

The tribunal awarded Maternity Allowance as the appellant's baby was delivered on 27/6/2022 stating that the correct calculation of the end of the 24 th week of pregnancy for working out entitlement to Maternity Allowance was to count back 16 weeks from the start of the expected week of childbirth. This meant that the end of the 24 th week of pregnancy was 26/6/2022.

The tribunal decided:

'4. The MATB1 expressly refers to the due week of confinement and clarifies that the due week is the seven days beginning on a Sunday. The expected week of childbirth for [AH] was, therefore, the week of 16/10/22 to 22/10/22. Counting back 16 weeks before the expected week of childbirth means that the end of the 24th week was 26/6/22. [AH's] baby was delivered on 27/6/22, which was the day after the end of the 24th week. Accordingly, she is entitled to Maternity Allowance.

5. The legislation, which is principally contained in the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, refers throughout to "week of confinement". I find that the correct calculation should use the start of the expected week of confinement as the reference point for the calculation for qualification for benefit.'

, 3 April 2024, First-tier Tribunal Brighton, case ref 1661337664066994

First-tier tribunal decisions are not binding on other tribunals but can be taken into account.

This case concerned a self-employed woman's entitlement to Maternity Allowance, however, it is arguable that an employed woman is entitled to maternity leave and SMP (if she otherwise meets the employment and earnings conditions) if there is evidence of delivery in or after the 16th week before the expected week of childbirth based on the date of the MATB1 maternity certificate.
Is there anything I can get if I don't qualify for SMP or MA?
You may be able to get Employment Support Allowance (ESA-Maternity) on maternity grounds if you do not qualify for SMP or MA but have done some work in the last three years but not recently. You do not need to do a Work Capability Assessment as you will need to provide your MATB1 maternity certificate.

ESA-Maternity can be paid from six weeks before your baby is due until two weeks after your baby is born. The rate of ESA varies according to your circumstances. ESA is £90.50 per week if you are over 25 or a single parent over 18.

You can get ESA-Maternity if:

you have paid or been credited with enough National Insurance contributions during the last three tax years that do not overlap the current calendar year.

You will need to claim MA first and if you do not qualify for MA the Jobcentre Plus must look at your contribution record to see if you can get ESA on maternity grounds. You do not need to make a separate application.

For more information on claiming ESA on maternity grounds, see the information sheet: Maternity Pay Questions

You may also be eligible for other benefits, see Benefits below.
What can I claim if I am self-employed?
You can claim Maternity Allowance following a stillbirth or the death of your baby if you meet the normal conditions. You do not need to prove your earnings when claiming MA as the JobCentre Plus will check your National Insurance contributions record.

A self-employed woman is treated as having the following earnings regardless of the amount you actually earn unless you do some employed work as well:

If you pay at least 13 weeks' class 2 National Insurance contributions in your 66 week test period, you will be entitled to MA of £184.03 a week (April 2024 - April 2025).

If you have not paid at least 13 weeks Class 2 National Insurance contributions in your 66 week test period, you will be treated as earning £30 a week (the MA threshold) and you will be entitled to MA of £27 per week (90% of your deemed average earnings).

You can pay Class 2 NICs voluntarily if you are self-employed, in order to qualify for the full rate of Maternity Allowance: https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions

You may also be eligible for other benefits, see Benefits below.

How to give notice for leave and pay following a stillbirth or death of your baby
How do I give notice for maternity leave and pay?
To get maternity leave you must normally give your employer the following information in or before the 15th week before your baby is due (if your employer asks you to, you must put it in writing):

1. that you are pregnant

2. the expected week of childbirth (this is the date on your MATB1 maternity certificate)

3. the date you would like to start your maternity leave.

If you are not able to give notice by the 15 th week before your baby is due, you should give notice as soon as reasonably possible.

If you have already given your employer notice as above and your baby was stillborn before the date you planned to start your maternity leave or your baby was born before the start of your maternity leave and did not survive, you must contact your employer and tell them the date of birth or stillbirth (the date of delivery) and that your maternity leave and pay must start the following day. You should do this as soon as reasonably possible.

If your baby was born before the 15 th week before the expected week of childbirth and did not survive or your baby was stillborn before the 15 th week before the expected week of childbirth, you must contact your employer and tell them the date of birth or stillbirth and that your maternity leave and pay must start the following day. You should do this as soon as reasonably possible.

To get SMP/Maternity Allowance you MUST give your employer/Jobcentre Plus a copy of your maternity certificate (form MAT B1) stating your expected week of childbirth which your midwife or GP can provide. If you have not already given your employer your MATB1 maternity certificate you must give it to your employer within three weeks of your maternity pay starting or up to 13 weeks from the start if there is a good reason for the delay.

If your baby was stillborn before the 15 th week before the expected week of childbirth or before the date you had planned to start your maternity leave, in order to receive SMP/Maternity Allowance you must provide your employer/Jobcentre Plus with a stillbirth certificate issued by the registrar or a notification of registration of a stillbirth issued by the attending midwife or doctor.

If you gave birth and your baby did not survive before the 15 th week before the expected week of childbirth or before the date you had planned to start your maternity leave, you must provide your employer/ Jobcentre Plus with evidence of the week of childbirth in order to receive SMP/Maternity Allowance. This could be a certificate from the hospital or from your GP or midwife. If you provide a copy of your baby's birth certificate an employer is only allowed to keep a record of the date of birth and is not allowed to keep a copy of the birth certificate.

You do not have to provide any other documents other than those listed above.

Once you have given notice, your employer must write to you within 28 days and state the date you are expected to return from maternity leave.
I am not sure about how to tell my employer and colleagues about the loss of my baby?
Some of the organisations listed below can provide support and information on telling your employer and colleagues about the loss of your baby.

The stillbirth and neonatal death charity, Sands, has information on returning to work after the death of your baby and information that you can give to your employer if that would be helpful: https://www.sands.org.uk/support/bereavement-support/sands-returning-work

Other rights to time off work
What can I do if I need more time off work?
Maternity leave lasts for 52 weeks and maternity pay lasts for 39 weeks. If you are not ready to return to work afterwards there are other options for taking more time off work and you may be entitled to parental bereavement leave and pay, see below .
Sick leave
If you are not well enough to return to work after maternity leave you are entitled to take sick leave. You should follow your employer's normal sickness reporting procedures.

If your employer provides contractual sick pay you are entitled to it in the usual way. If you are normally paid Statutory Sick Pay you may not qualify if you are returning to work after a period of unpaid leave. Your period of sickness must also begin after the end of your maternity leave in order to qualify for SSP. For more information see: Sickness during pregnancy and maternity leave
Annual leave
You can ask your employer if you can take annual leave immediately after your maternity leave. Your normal holiday entitlement continues to accrue during maternity leave so you may have some holiday owing to you.

All employees are entitled to at least 28 days paid annual leave. This can include paid Bank Holidays (you can check your contract or ask your employer). Annual leave should be agreed with your employer in the normal way and you should not be treated less favourably because you have been away on maternity leave.
Unpaid leave
You can ask your employer if they will agree to a further period of unpaid leave. Your employer does not have to agree to it. If your employer does agree to further unpaid leave ask your employer to confirm the agreement in writing including the period of leave agreed and confirmation that you will have the right to return to the same job.
Shared parental leave
Shared parental leave allows parents to share the mother's maternity leave if the mother returns to work early or cuts short her leave/pay to transfer to her partner. It does not provide any extra leave. Parents are not entitled to book shared parental leave following the death of their child.

If you have given notice before the birth of your baby to take shared parental leave and your baby is stillborn or dies after the birth, you are entitled to take the leave that you have already been booked. If you want to cancel any shared parental leave that has already been booked, you should give at least eight weeks' notice. If you want to make changes such as reducing the amount of shared parental leave booked or vary blocks of leave into a single period of shared parental leave, a bereaved parent is entitled to give one notice of variation, subject to eight weeks' notice.
What happens to my annual leave if I have been on maternity leave and sick leave for a long time?
You continue to accrue annual leave during sick leave and maternity leave. This means that you continue to build up your normal holiday entitlement as it you were still at work. Under the Working Time Regulations all workers are entitled to 28 days statutory annual leave. If you get more than 28 days holiday a year, the extra leave is contractual leave which is provided by your employer.

If you have been away from work for a long time because of sick leave and/or maternity leave, you may have accrued a large amount of leave. You will need to discuss with your employer when you can take this leave. You can take annual leave during sick leave, so you could ask to receive some paid holiday during your sick leave. You are entitled to carry forward 20 days annual leave if you cannot take it because of sick leave.
Can I ask to return to work on reduced hours?
Yes, all employees can make an application for flexible work if you would like to return to work part- time or you want to ask for changes to your hours, days or place of work. Your employer must consider your application reasonably and give you a decision within three months. They can only refuse for a good business reason. This usually results in a permanent change to your contract. If you only want a temporary reduction in hours you should talk to your employer about a phased return to work e.g. part-time for the first six months.

For more information, see: Child friendly working hours

Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay
What is parental bereavement leave?
You can take two weeks parental bereavement leave following a stillbirth or the death of a child under 18 if you are an employee and you give the correct notice. This is a day one right. You can take the leave at any time from the date of the stillbirth or death up to 56 weeks.

As maternity leave and pay will automatically start from the day after your baby's stillbirth, if you were not already on maternity leave, you will usually need to take parental bereavement leave after your maternity leave has ended.
What is statutory parental bereavement pay?
You are entitled to statutory parental bereavement pay of £184.03 per week (April 2024 - April 2025) or 90% of your average earnings if lower for up to two weeks if you are an employee, agency or zero hours worker and:

· you have been continuously employed for at least 26 weeks by the week immediately before your baby's stillbirth or death, and

· you earn at least £123 per week (before tax) (April 2024 - April 2025) in the eight weeks (if you are paid weekly) or two months (if you are paid monthly) before the week in which your baby was stillborn or died.

You can take statutory parental bereavement leave/pay in addition to any maternity or paternity leave/pay you qualify for and you may qualify for it even if you do not qualify for Statutory Maternity Pay or Statutory Paternity Pay.
How do I give notice for statutory parental bereavement leave and pay?
If you want to take your leave immediately or up to 8 weeks from your baby's stillbirth or death you must tell your employer before you would normally start work in the week in which you wish to take leave. If you want to take your leave from 9 to 56 weeks after your baby's stillbirth or death you must tell your employer at least a week before you wish to take leave.

As maternity leave and pay will automatically start from the day after your baby's stillbirth, if you were not already on maternity leave, you will usually need to take parental bereavement leave after your maternity leave has ended.

You must tell your employer by phone, email or other message, the date of your baby's stillbirth or death, the date you want to start your leave and whether you wish to take one or two weeks' leave. You can take each week separately. You do not need to provide proof of the stillbirth or death but you must complete a declaration. You can find a declaration here: https://www.gov.uk/parental-bereavement-pay-leave/how-to-claim
What can I do if my employer does not pay Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (SPBP) correctly?
If your employer has refused to pay your SPBP, is paying it incorrectly or has gone into liquidation and is unable to pay it you can contact HMRC Statutory Payments Disputes Team on 0300 322 9422 and ask them to make a formal decision on your entitlement to SPBP. If HMRC order your employer to pay your SPBP and your employer does not pay it, HMRC will pay your SPBP directly.
I am self-employed, do I have any rights to paid time off following the loss of our baby?
Unfortunately there are currently no legal rights to paid time off for fathers and partners if you are self-employed. This is a huge gap in the law and means that self-employed fathers and partners are not eligible for paternity leave or pay or parental bereavement leave or pay.

Entitlement to paternity, shared parental and parental bereavement leave and pay is only provided to those who are classed as employees or 'workers'. Workers can include those who are described as 'freelance' or 'contractors' who may be paid through PAYE with tax and class 1 national insurance deducted through your employer's payroll. However, if you are registered as self-employed and pay your own tax and class 2 national insurance through self-assessment, you will not be eligible. If you have any work which is paid by an employer through PAYE, you could be eligible for paternity pay for 2 weeks and statutory parental bereavement pay for 2 weeks if you meet the qualifying conditions.

If you do not have any work paid through PAYE and you are solely self-employed, you may be eligible for benefits if you are unable to work for a period or have reduced earnings. You may be able to claim Universal Credit. Universal Credit is means-tested and will depend on your circumstances, such as household income, savings and housing costs. Universal Credit is a monthly payment which increases and decreases as your earnings change. If you are self-employed you will be asked to report your earnings each month. This means that even if you are not ordinarily eligible for Universal Credit (if your earnings are usually too high) you could become eligible for Universal Credit for a period in which you are unable to work or have reduced earnings. If you are eligible for Universal Credit you may be entitled to other help, see benefits for families below.

There is more information here: https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit

You can find benefit calculators here: https://www.gov.uk/benefits-calculators

If you are not eligible for Universal Credit because of your income or other circumstances, you may be able to claim New-Style Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) if you are not well enough to work following the loss of your baby. New-Style ESA is claimed through Universal Credit but is based on your national insurance contributions and is not means-tested. There is more information about claiming New-Style ESA if you are self-employed here: https://www.gov.uk/employment-support-allowance

Paternity leave for fathers and partners
Can my partner take paternity leave?
Fathers and partners (including same sex partners) are entitled to paternity leave and pay if you meet the normal qualifying conditions if your baby is stillborn or your baby dies after the birth.

If your baby was born very prematurely and did not survive or your baby was stillborn you can still qualify for paternity leave and pay if you would have been employed for 26 weeks by the 15 th week before the expected week of childbirth and your average weekly earnings are at least £123 per week (April 2024 - April 2025) in the eight weeks up to the week before the week of birth or stillbirth.

Notice of paternity leave and pay must be given by the 15 th week before the expected week of childbirth or as soon as reasonably possible. You can vary the date you want to start paternity leave by giving your employer at least 28 days' notice. If it's not possible to give 28 days' notice, you should give notice as soon as reasonably possible.

If you have not yet given notice and your baby is stillborn or your baby was born early and did not survive, you must contact your employer as soon as possible and give notice of when you want to take paternity leave. If you want to start paternity leave and pay immediately, it will start on the day following the date of birth or stillbirth.

You can start paternity leave at any time from your baby's birth or stillbirth up to 52 weeks afterwards. If your baby is born prematurely and does not survive or your baby is stillborn before the expected week of childbirth, paternity leave can be taken up to 52 weeks from the due date. Paternity leave can be one or two weeks or two separate weeks and must be completed within the 52 week period.

You must give your employer notice of the date of your baby's birth or stillbirth (the date of delivery). Notice for paternity leave and pay should be given in writing, if the employer asks for it, and should be given within 28 days of the date of your baby's birth or stillbirth.

For more information on paternity leave see: Time off for Working Parents

Benefits for families
Can we claim any help with funeral costs?
You may be able to claim help with funeral expenses if your baby was stillborn or your baby died after the birth and you or your partner are receiving a qualifying benefit:

Income support

Income-based jobseekers allowance

Income-based employment and support allowance

Housing benefit

A disability element of Working Tax Credit

Child Tax Credit

Universal credit

Funeral Expenses Payment - England and Wales. You can claim by phoning the Bereavement Helpline on 0800 731 0469. https://www.gov.uk/funeral-payments

Funeral Payment - Northern Ireland. Telephone - 0800 085 2463 https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/funeral-expenses-payments

Funeral Support Payment - Scotland. Telephone - 0800 182 2222. https://www.mygov.scot/funeral-support-payment/if-the-person-who-died-was-17-or-under/

You must claim within six months of the funeral even if you are waiting to receive a qualifying benefit. If you are waiting for a decision on a qualifying benefit, make sure you apply for the funeral payment on time and contact them when you get a decision on the qualifying benefit.
Can I claim Child Benefit if my baby died shortly after the birth?
If your baby did not survive, you can claim Child Benefit for up to eight weeks from their death as long as you meet the eligibility conditions at the time of the birth. You will need to provide the birth certificate and date of death. Youdo not need to provide any other documentation.

See www.gov.uk/child-benefit-child-parent-dies to make a claim for Child Benefit; claims can be backdated for up to 3 months.
Are there any benefits I can claim while I'm on a low income?
You may be able to claim Universal Credit if you are on a low income, taking unpaid leave or to top up your Statutory Sick Pay or maternity pay. Universal Credit is means-tested and depends on your total household income, number of dependents and housing costs.

If you are already claiming Child or Working Tax Credit, you should get advice before making a claim for Universal Credit as this will end your tax credits claim and you may be worse off on Universal Credit.

For more information on Universal Credit, see: www.gov.uk/universal-credit You can also get advice from the Citizens Advice free Universal Credit Help to Claim service: England: 0800 144 8444, Wales: 0800 024 1220, Scotland: 0800 023 2581.

For an online benefits calculator, see www.betteroffcalculator.co.uk

For more information on benefits for pregnant women and new parents, see Money for parents and babies
I am claiming Universal Credit, do I have to attend interviews and look for work after losing my baby?
If you are not entitled to maternity leave or pay following the loss of your baby and you are claiming Universal Credit (or want to make a claim), you are exempt from work-related requirements for 15 weeks after your baby's stillbirth or for 6 months after the death of your baby or a child under 16. This means that you cannot be asked to look for work as a condition of Universal Credit during this period. After that, you are exempt from 'work-search' and 'work availability' requirements for up to 14 days if you provide a fit note confirming that you are unfit for work. You should continue to provide fit notes if you need a longer period. You should speak to your GP and arrange a meeting with your work coach to review your 'claimant commitment' during this period.

Note: if you are the main carer of another child or children under 3, you are not required to look for work .
Can I claim a maternity grant if my baby was stillborn or died soon after the birth?
If you or your partner are receiving Income Support, income-based Jobseekers Allowance, Child Tax Credit, Working Tax Credit with a disability element or Universal Credit you may be entitled to a Sure Start Maternity Grant or Best Start Grant Scotland.

Claims must be made within 6 months of your baby's birth or stillbirth. The Sure Start Maternity Grant is £500. You can only claim if there are no other children under 16 in your household. The Best Start Grant Scotland is £707.25 for your first baby and £353.65 for subsequent children.

Sure Start Maternity Grant - England and Wales. Telephone 0800 169 0140 to request a form or see: https://www.gov.uk/sure-start-maternity-grant/how-to-claim

Sure Start Maternity Grant - Northern Ireland, see: https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/sure-start-maternity-grant

Best Start Grant - Scotland. Telephone - 0800 182 2222. https://www.mygov.scot/best-start-grant-best-start-foods/
This information sheet was produced in March 2024. It is very important to get up-to-date advice as law and guidance changes. This guide is for information purposes only and should not be treated as legal advice. You are strongly advised to get personal legal advice about the individual circumstances of your case.
Specialist support organisations
Miscarriage Association
Advice Line 01924 200799
https://www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk/ SANDS
Advice and support on stillbirth and neonatal death

Helpline 0808 164 3332
https://www.sands.org.uk/ Tommy's
Research and information for parents who have suffered miscarriage, stillbirth or premature birth. www.tommys.org

Where to go for more help
Maternity Action
For information on maternity and parental rights at work and benefits, see: www.maternityaction.org.uk

Maternity Rights Advice Line:

Nationwide (except London) - 0808 802 0029

London - 0808 802 0057

For opening hours see: https://maternityaction.org.uk/advice-line/
ACAS
For advice on employment rights or for Early Conciliation if you are thinking of making a tribunal claim
www.acas.org.uk
Helpline: 0300 123 11 00 (offers telephone interpreting service)
Citizens Advice
For information about your rights see: www.citizensadvice.org.uk

You can telephone the national Citizens Advice phone service on 03444 111 444

You can get help with Universal Credit claims through the free national Help to Claim service: England: 0800 144 8444, Wales: 0800 024 1220, Scotland: 0800 023 2581

For more information on how to find your local Citizens Advice Bureau, see:
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/contact-us/contact-us/contact-us/ Civil Legal Advice
If you are eligible for legal aid you can get free legal advice on 0345 345 4 345 (offers translation service). To check your eligibility see www.gov.uk/civil-legal-advice

To search for specialist legal advisers or solicitors in your area see: https://find-legal-advice.justice.gov.uk/
Equality Advisory Support Service
Help and advice on discrimination and human rights www.equalityadvisoryservice.com

Helpline: 0808 800 0082 Mon - Fri 9am - 7pm, Sat 10am - 2pm

Textphone: 0808 800 0084
Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)
For information and advice about discrimination law www.equalityhumanrights.com

For information for employees and employers about pregnancy and maternity rights in the workplace see: www.equalityhumanrights.com/about-us/our-work/key-projects/managing-pregnancy-and-maternity-workplace
GOV.UK
The government's online information service www.gov.uk
Jobcentre Plus
To make new telephone benefit claims or request claim forms, including Maternity Allowance and Sure Start Maternity Grant: 0800 055 6688 Mon - Fri 8am - 6pm

For ESA/JSA/Income Support claims: 0800 169 0310 Mon - Fri 8am - 6pm

For Maternity Allowance claims: 0800 169 0283 Mon - Fri 8am - 6pm

For Sure Start Maternity Grant claims: 0800 169 0140 Mon - Fri 8am - 6pm/For Best Start Grant claims in Scotland: 0800 182 2222

Universal Credit helpline - for new claims and existing online claims: 0800 328 5644. Mon - Fri 8am - 6pm

For help with claiming Universal Credit see: www.gov.uk/universal-credit
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC)
Tax Credit Helpline: 0345 300 3900 Mon - Fri 8am-8pm, Sat 8am-4pm, Sun 9am -5pm

Child Benefit: 0300 200 3100 Mon - Fri 8am-8pm, Sat 8am- 4pm

For queries about Statutory Maternity Pay, Adoption Pay, Paternity Pay and Shared Parental Pay:

Employees helpline 0300 200 3500

Employers helpline 0300 200 3200
HMRC Statutory Payments Disputes Team
If you cannot resolve a dispute about your SMP, you can ask HMRC for a formal decision on your entitlement. You can also ask HMRC to pay your SMP if your employer has refused to pay or has gone into liquidation.

See: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/statutory-pay-entitlement-how-to-deal-with-disagreements

Telephone: 0300 322 9422 - for disputes about Statutory Maternity Pay/Adoption Pay/Paternity Pay/Shared Parental Pay/Parental Bereavement Pay or Statutory Sick Pay

You can also write to the Statutory Payments Disputes Team at HM Revenue and Customs, PT Operations, Statutory Payments Dispute Team, BX9 1AN.
Insolvency Service Helpline
You can currently only contact the Insolvency Service online.

For what you can claim if your employer goes out of business, see: https://www.gov.uk/your-rights-if-your-employer-is-insolvent
Law Centres Network
To find out if there is a Law Centre in your area telephone 020 3637 1330 or see: www.lawcentres.org.uk/
Turn2us
Online benefits calculator and grant search www.turn2us.org.uk

More Maternity Action information sheets
Rights during pregnancy Pregnant at work 2021 Pregnancy Discrimination Time off for antenatal care Health and safety during pregnancy and return to work Resigning from your job during pregnancy and maternity leave Changing jobs or more than one job
Pregnant during maternity leave (when you are expecting again)
Premature births - rights to maternity leave and pay Miscarriage stillbirth and neonatal death - rights to time off and pay Maternity pay and benefits Maternity Pay Questions Money for Parents and Babies Maternity and parental leave Rights during maternity leave and return to work Keeping in touch during leave Shared Parental Leave and Pay Time off for Working Parents Asking to change your working hours or go part-time Child friendly working hours Redundancy, dismissal and discrimination Pregnancy Discrimination Rights during maternity leave and return to work Redundancy during pregnancy, maternity and parental leave Dealing with problems at work Health and safety, breastfeeding and sickness Sickness during pregnancy maternity leave and return to work Health and safety during pregnancy and return to work Postnatal depression and depression during pregnancy Childbirth injuries - rights at work and benefits for new mothers Breastfeeding on return to work Breastfeeding while out and about Self-employed, agency and zero hours work Maternity and parental rights for agency workers Maternity and parental rights if you are self-employed Changing jobs or more than one job Zero hours contracts - maternity and parental rights Apprentices - maternity and parental rights at work Fathers and partners, including same sex partners Rights at work for fathers and partners Shared Parental Leave and Pay Child friendly working hours Time off for Working Parents Dealing with problems at work Adoption or surrogacy Adoption leave and pay Time off and pay for parents-surrogacy Shared parental leave and pay - adoption Money for Parents and Babies
Available at www.maternityaction.org.uk

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Miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death - rights to time off and pay - Maternity Action

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This page contains information on:Miscarriage Stillbirth Neonatal deathMaternity leave and pay following a stillbirth or neonatal deathMaternity Allowance (MA) How to give notice for leave and pay following a stillbirth or death of your babyOther rights to time off workParental Bereavement Leave and PayPaternity leave for fathers and partnersBenefits for familiesSpecialist support organisationsWhere to go more "

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Statutory Parental Beeavement Pay & Leave

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Statutory Parental Beeavement Pay & Leave

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You and your partner may be able to take time off work if your child dies before they turn 18, or if you have a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy.

The death or stillbirth must have happened on or after:

6 April 2020 if you're employed in England, Scotland or Wales

6 April 2022 if you're employed in Northern Ireland

You might be able to get leave, pay or both. You may be eligible for:

Parental Bereavement Leave

Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay

There's rules about when you can take your leave and pay and how to claim.

Employment rights when on leave

Your employment rights are protected while on Parental Bereavement Leave. This includes your right to:

pay rises

build up ('accrue') holiday

return to work

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Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay and Leave

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How to claim Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay and Leave: what you can get, check if you're eligible and how to claim it.

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Maternity Allowance is paid to pregnant women who do not get Statutory Maternity Pay - rate, eligibility, apply, form MA1

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In partnership with the Tunbridge Wells SANDs (Stillbirth and NeoNatal Death) Group we have provided a contemporary memorial garden and wall as a place of contemplation and reflection for all parents who have experienced the loss of a child.

The focal point is a finely crafted bronze statue of a young boy and girl embracing each other. Raised flowerbeds are situated in the centre of the memorial where parents may place a cast bronze plaque in memory of their baby.

The initial dedication period for the plaque is five years after which the lease may be renewed.

For help and support following the loss of a baby before, during or shortly after birth go to the Tunbridge Wells SAND's website.

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SAND's Memorial Garden with Bronze Plaque

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A place of contemplation and reflection for all parents who have experienced the loss of a child. In partnership with the Tunbridge Wells SANDs (Stillbirth and NeoNatal Death) Group we have provided a contemporary memorial garden and wall as a

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Sands - Saving babies' lives. Supporting bereaved families.

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On 14 January the government set out their response to the House of Lords Preterm Birth Committee report, published in November 2024.

It is good to see the government make positive commitments to tackling inequality in maternal and neonatal outcomes along with recognition of systemic and nationwide issues in maternity services.

This is amazing news. But we will not stop campaigning until we see an end to all inequalities in baby loss.

We welcome that the government recognises that failures identified in recent maternity reviews and investigations are not isolated incidents, but part of a wider issue experienced across maternity and neonatal services.

They must now set out urgently what action they will take to address this as part of the new 10-year plan for the NHS.

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Sands welcomes the government's response to Preterm Birth Committee Report | Sands - Saving babies' lives. Supporting bereaved families.

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On 14 January the government set out their response to the House of Lords Preterm Birth Committee report, published in November 2024. It is good to see the government make positive commitments to tackling inequality in maternal and neonatal outcomes along with recognition of systemic and nationwide issues in maternity services.

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This article covers your rights at work in the incredibly difficult circumstances where you have a miscarriage, stillbirth, or if your baby dies. We recognise that this is a traumatic and distressing time and we have set out this page to help understand the law in this area. For the purposes of your rights under the law, if a baby is stillborn before the 24th week of pregnancy, it is called a miscarriage. If a baby is stillborn after the beginning of the 24th week of pregnancy it is called a stillbirth.
What can I claim if I have a miscarriage?

If you have a miscarriage, unfortunately you will not be entitled to maternity leave, paternity leave or shared parental leave.
Sick leave
If you are not well enough to work due to your miscarriage, you are entitled to take sick leave. Sick leave for a miscarriage may be protected in the same way as sick leave for a pregnancy-related illness. You should check your employer's policy or speak to a member of management to confirm which procedures apply.

Your sick pay (including Statutory Sick Pay) will be paid in the same way as for any other employee, and you may be only paid it for a certain amount of time depending on your employer's sickness absence policy. Your employer may offer you contractual sick pay, or just Statutory Sick Pay (SSP). If you do not earn enough to claim SSP or your SSP runs out, then you may be entitled to Employment and Support Allowance (in some areas, income-related Employment and Support Allowance is replaced by Universal Credit if you are making a new claim). Check with your Jobcentre Plus office.
Compassionate leave
You or your partner's employer may also provide compassionate leave in such a case, or agree a period of annual leave or unpaid leave.

For more information on returning to work after a miscarriage, you might find the Miscarriage Association helpful. They offer a helpline and advice for employees and employers on going back to work after a miscarriage.

What are my rights if my baby dies or is stillborn?

If you have a stillbirth, or if your baby is born alive but later dies, even after a few seconds (and even if this takes place before the 24th week of pregnancy), you are entitled to all your maternity rights.

If you are already on maternity leave, you do not have to take any action. However, if the birth happened before you intended to start maternity leave, or before you gave notice of maternity leave to your employer, your maternity leave will start the day after the birth and you will need to inform your employer as soon as you can.

If your baby dies or is stillborn before the end of the qualifying week for Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP), special rules apply in determining whether you will qualify for SMP. The eight week test period used to calculate your average earnings runs to the last payday in or before the week in which the birth/stillbirth occurred, and you will be treated as though you had 26 weeks' service by the end of the qualifying week if you would have had, had your baby not been born early.

If you are entitled to Maternity Allowance (MA), but have not yet claimed it, you should claim it as soon as you can, explaining on the form what happened. If you have claimed MA but are not yet receiving it (for example because you were not planning maternity leave to start yet) you must let Jobcentre Plus know what has happened.

If you return to work within six months of the birth you are entitled to the same health and safety rights as other women who have given birth within the last six months. For more information, see our article on health and safety after maternity leave.

Paternity rights

If you have a partner who is eligible for paternity leave, they will still be entitled to take this after a stillbirth. This leave must be completed within 56 days of the birth. However, if the baby was born early, the leave must be completed within the period from the actual date of birth to 56 days after the expected week of birth.

Statutory Paternity Pay also applies in the same way if they are entitled to it.

Shared Parental Leave

The rules are slightly different for Shared Parental Leave and Pay if your baby passes away. If you or your partner had given notice before the birth of the baby to take Shared Parental Leave and the baby is born but then dies, you or your partner are entitled to take the leave that has already been booked.

To cancel any Shared Parental Leave that has already been booked, you should give at least eight weeks' notice. The law says if you want to make changes such as to reduce the amount of leave booked or vary blocks of leave into a single period of shared parental leave, you can give one notice of variation, subject to eight weeks' notice. However, you and your employer may come to an agreement that you will take less leave than you had planned.

If your baby dies before you or your partner have given notice to book Shared Parental Leave, then unfortunately any further entitlement to Shared Parental Leave will be lost, as you cannot give a notice to book leave after the baby has died.

In case of a stillbirth (where a baby is born dead after 24 weeks of pregnancy), the regulations are unclear but it is unlikely that you will be entitled to Shared Parental Leave. In such cases, the mother can still take maternity leave and the partner can still take paternity leave (assuming they are eligible).

You can get more information and support from the organisation SANDS.

Parental Bereavement Leave

You have the right to take 2 weeks of parental bereavement leave during the year following your baby's death. This is available to both parents, regardless of how long you have worked for your employer. You can take it in one block of 2 weeks or 2 blocks of 1 week each.

Your employer cannot refuse a request for parental bereavement leave, but you must take it within 56 weeks of your child passing away. For more information, have a look at our parental bereavement leave page. Whilst you are on parental bereavement leave, you may be entitled to parental bereavement pay.

If you need more time off after a miscarriage, stillbirth or when your baby dies

If you are not ready to return to work after taking maternity, paternity and/or parental bereavement leave, there are some further options you may wish to consider:

Sick leave - If you are not well enough to return to work then you can take sick leave. You should follow your company's usual sickness procedures. You will usually receive statutory sick pay after 3 days of sickness absence, and this usually lasts for 28 weeks. You should check your employer's sickness policy because some employers offer more generous arrangements.

Annual leave - You could apply for a period of annual leave. Note that your normal holiday entitlement continues to accrue during maternity leave so you may have some holiday to use up.

Unpaid leave - Your employer might agree to period of unpaid leave, however they are not required to do this. If your employer does agree, you should aim to agree the dates of the leave in writing, and obtain written confirmation that you have the right to return to the same job when you get back.

Flexible working request - If you think it would help you to reduce your hours or otherwise change the hours that you work, you should submit a flexible working request in writing to your employer. Your employer has three months to give you a decision, so you should make the request well in advance if you can.

What benefits can I claim?

If you have a stillbirth, or a live birth but the baby dies afterwards, you may be entitled to the Sure Start Maternity Grant (in Scotland, the Best Start Grant) and/or the Funeral Expenses Payment (in Scotland, the Funeral Support Payment).

For a live birth, you are also entitled to Child Benefit for the period from the birth until eight weeks after the baby's death. You can make a claim for Child Benefit and up to three months after you are entitled to it. You may also be temporarily entitled to a child element in Universal Credit, or (usually only if you are already claiming it) in Child Tax Credit. However, you may not be entitled to a child element if you already have more than one child.

If you need time off work due to a stillbirth, a miscarriage or a bereavement, you may be entitled to statutory maternity pay, maternity allowance, statutory paternity pay, statutory sick pay or statutory bereavement pay (see above). If you're not entitled to these, or they are not enough to live on, you may be able to claim benefits, or increased amounts of benefits you are already on. You can contact Citizens Advice if you need help to understand the effects on your benefits.

Funeral expenses

You can claim a Funeral Expenses Payment if you are responsible for funeral expenses. You will be treated as responsible if you are the parent of a stillborn child, or the parent's partner. Usually this must be for a funeral in the UK, although sometimes it is possible to get help with a funeral in another EEA state. You must be on certain benefits in respect of the day you claim the payment. In Scotland, you can claim a Funeral Support Payment.

If you want more information on the Funeral Expenses Payment or the Funeral Support Payment contact your local Citizens Advice Bureau.

You can get further advice and support if your baby is stillborn or dies from SANDS.

This advice applies in England, Wales and Scotland. If you live in another part of the UK, the law may differ. Please call our helpline for more details. If you are in Northern Ireland you can visit the Labour Relations Agency or call their helpline Workplace Information Service on 03300 555 300.
If you have further questions and would like to contact our advice team please use our advice contact form below or call us.

The information on the law contained on this site is provided free of charge and does not, and is not intended to, amount to legal advice to any person on a specific case or matter. If you are not a solicitor, you are advised to obtain specific legal advice about your case or matter and not to rely solely on this information. Law and guidance is changing regularly in this area.

We cannot provide advice on employment rights in Northern Ireland as the law is different. You can visit the Labour Relations Agency or call their helpline Workplace Information Service on 03300 555 300.

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Miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death - your rights at work - Working Families

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Find out your rights at work relating to miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death.

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Welcome to The Shia Family CIC, Offering personalised keepsakes and creative workshops to support grieving parents in honouring their babies.

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We help children, young people, parents, and families to rebuild their lives when a child grieves or when a child dies.

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Talking to young children about the loss of their sibling

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We asked our community, our midwives and our friends at Sibling Support for their experiences of & advice for anyone talking to their children about baby loss.

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Winston's Wish is the UK's childhood bereavement charity. We support children and their families after the death of someone important.

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Including Chrissy Teigen's book suggestion 'Mommy Says I Have A Brother.'

For more parenting stories, advice, tips and memes, check out Grazia's new parenting community on Instagram, @TheJuggleUK Trigger warning: Contains discussion of baby loss and grief.

Sometimes it can be difficult to have necessary conversations with your kids at an early stage, especially when it concerns important but sensitive subjects like bereavement.

With 1 in 8 pregnancies ending in miscarriage and around 1 in every 200 stillbirths, baby loss is more common than we might think. And while it's a deeply traumatic experience for mothers and partners to go through, it can also be a very difficult time for a younger child.

It's important that they understand and process what's happened in a healthy way, and children's books are a great place to start.

Chrissy Teigen recently posted a book she had been given to share with her two children, Luna and Miles, who were expecting a baby brother, Jack, back in October of 2020.

With the help of some brilliant bloggers like Big Books For Little Hands and Whitney Guerrero, we have put together a selection of the best books that will help explain baby loss and sibling loss to kids. Take a look through below...

Mommy Says I Have a Brother, by Stephany Resendes & Kerry Bell

Mommy Says I Have a Brother is designed to open up a conversation with your children about a sibling they may or may not have met, making it easier for them to ask questions and learn about a special person that is no longer here with them.

Perfectly Imperfect Family, by Amie Lands & Natia Gogiashvili

Perfectly Imperfect Family acknowledges the stigma associated with pregnancy loss, infant death, sibling grief, and including a baby who has died by demonstrating loving ways in which a family can continue to celebrate their beloved baby.

We Were Gonna Have a Baby, But We Had an Angel Instead, by Pat Schwiebert

A new book from the author of When Hello Means Goodbye. Created especially for children who are suffering the loss of their family's pregnancy.

Always My Twin, by Valerie R. Samuels & Najah Clemmons

Always My Twin is for young children who have experienced the death of their twin sibling, is a book for any child whose twin died before birth, after birth or as a young child.

Where are you Lydie?, by Emma Poore

Where are you Lydie? is a special picture book centred around the subject of sibling loss, sensitively written and illustrated for children between 3 and 7 years old. It is a facilitative story and guide for young children and their parents to explore death and bereavement together and to start those difficult conversations or explore the questions that may come up after the death of a baby in a safe and inspiring space.

My Sibling Still, by Megan Lacourrege & Joshua Wichterich

My Sibling Still is written as a love letter from a sibling lost to miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death to any surviving siblings. It walks through the emotions that a child and his or her family may experience following a loss while also depicting the loving presence of the deceased child in the family's life.

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10 Books To Help Explain Baby Loss And Sibling Loss To Kids

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Discover the best books for explaining baby loss and sibling loss to your child, to help them understand and process their emotions. Read more on Grazia.

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MY Story Tree

A heartbreakingly honest account of a father's grief for his son from the illustrious pairing of two former Children's Laureates. Very occasionally the term non-fiction has to stretch itself to accommodate a book that fits into no category at all. Michael Rosen's Sad Book is such a book.

It chronicles Michael's grief at the death of his son Eddie from meningitis at the age of 19. A moving combination of sincerity and simplicity, it acknowledges that sadness is not always avoidable or reasonable and perfects the art of making complicated feelings plain. It wasn't made like any other book either; Michael Rosen said of the text, " I wrote it at a moment of extreme feeling and it went straight down onto the page ...

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Michael Rosen's Sad Book By Michael Rosen

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A heartbreakingly honest account of a father's grief for his son from the illustrious pairing of two former Children's Laureates. Very occasionally the term non-fiction has to stretch itself to accommodate a book that fits into no category at all.

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We offer confidential bereavement support to anyone affected by the sudden and unexpected death of a baby or young child.

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After thirty years of service our very first National Director, Ruth Bender Atik is retiring and we are recruiting for a new CEO. Our next Chief Executive will have the full support of the trustees to develop the strategy that will take the Miscarriage Association through the next chapter of its journey, based on a [...]
Continue reading "

We are so thankful to everyone who contributes to Baby Loss Awareness Week. Sharing stories, raising funds and getting involved on social media - it all helps us to spread the word and raise awareness of the impact of miscarriage, ectopic and molar pregnancy. Crucially, you help us all create and maintain this special opportunity [...]
Continue reading "

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has updated its guidance for doctors on caring for people with recurrent miscarriage. They have also published a patient information leaflet. What is new? There is a change in the definition of recurrent miscarriage more consideration of the occasions where someone might be offered tests after two [...]
Continue reading "

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The Miscarriage Association:Pregnancy Loss Information & Support

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Learn about the Miscarriage Association, how to cope, and support those experiencing pregnancy loss. Access vital resources and information.

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On this page:

This information explains what a hospital review is, why it's important and how reviews will be improved across the UK by the use of the new National Perinatal Mortality Review Tool (PMRT). This information is for parents whose baby has died before, during or up to four weeks after birth and where the baby has died having been cared for on a neonatal unit. We hope this information clearly explains what the National Perinatal Mortality Review Tool means for you and your family, why information about you is important to the review process and how this information is used and protected.

When a baby dies before, during or after birth, the hospital (or hospitals) where the mother and baby were looked after should review the care the mother and baby received. This is called a hospital 'perinatal' or 'neonatal' review and is when a clinical team looks through the mother's and baby's hospital notes to understand the events that led up to the death of the baby. It is different to a coroner's investigation or inquest.

The hospital review forms part of standard NHS care which should be provided for every family after a death so that bereaved parents have as much information as possible about why their baby died. Another important reason hospitals carry out reviews of any baby who is stillborn or dies in their care, is so that hospitals can learn from what happened in order to improve care and prevent, if possible, the death of other babies in the future.

As a bereaved parent you should be told by your hospital that a review is going to take place and be offered the opportunity to ask questions or provide information about your care for the review panel to think about during their review. You will not be asked to attend the review meeting yourself. Once the review has happened you should be offered an appointment to see your consultant to discuss the findings of the review. If you consented to a post-mortem those results should have been considered when the review was done, and should also be discussed with you at your consultant appointment. This may be several weeks after your baby died and might involve more than one appointment, as all the information needed to complete the review may not be available until possibly a few months later.

Of note, in England some baby deaths are reviewed by the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) in which case the local hospital review is postponed until the HSIB investigation is complete.

Why review of care is so important when a baby has died

Reviewing the death of every baby in a standardised, high quality way is important in order to understand what happened and to give parents answers. It's also important as a way of improving the health service wherever possible to ensure every family receives the best care in the future.

We know, however, that in the past not all hospitals had a good review process in place. This meant that parents were not provided with all the information about what happened to their baby and why. It also meant that the opportunity to improve care for future parents, based on lessons learned through review when a baby dies, is also missed.

Why the quality of hospital reviews needed to be improved

In 2012, listening to both parents and health professionals, the baby charity Sands recognised the need to improve and standardise the quality of hospital reviews of baby deaths. Together with the Department of Health they set up a working group of both health professional experts as well as parents who'd experience of bereavement and hospital review, to decide what should be done. The idea of a standardised Perinatal Mortality Review Tool was developed by the group, with government support.

MBRRACE-UK was commissioned by the Department of Health and the Welsh and Scottish governments to develop the National Perinatal Mortality Review Tool (PMRT).

The purpose of the national PMRT is to support hospital reviews by providing a standardised, structured process so that what happened at every stage of the pregnancy, birth and after, from booking through to bereavement care, and care when the family leaves hospital, is considered by staff reviewing care in a robust way. Importantly, parents will be asked if they have questions or views on their care they'd like the review panel to respond to. Once the panel has finished its review the results are fed-back to parents.

Using the PMRT to improve the quality of reviews

The PMRT is an on-line tool, but the information it collects is not public. It is linked to the system that MBRRACE-UK already runs on behalf of all UK governments and which is kept secure at the University of Oxford. The MBRRACE-UK data system collects brief information about every pregnancy and birth which ends in a late miscarriage, a stillbirth or death of a baby. This is in order to monitor what is happening between different hospitals, regions of the UK and countries in the UK, and to understand what factors contribute to baby deaths so that MBRRACE-UK can make recommendations to prevent future deaths, wherever possible. See Information about Parents and Health Service Users. You can see the information MBRRACE-UK already collects from hospitals about babies who are stillborn and die and their mothers on the FAQ's page.

The PMRT collects more information about an individual mother and baby than the MBRRACE-UK data system, because the hospital reviewers need to look in more detail at the care the mother and baby received throughout pregnancy, birth and afterwards. The hospital reviewers will discuss these details at a face-to-face review meeting, using the PMRT process. They then summarise their findings and produce a report for parents. This report should also answer any questions parents have and recommend actions needed to improve care for future families.

What this mean for your personal information

Information provided when the PMRT is used feeds into the MBRRACE-UK data collection system and vice versa. This means that if you are a parent whose baby has died, both systems will include your personal details and that of your baby (name, address, date of birth and postcode). While MBRRACE-UK do not use this personal information for their purposes, it is needed by the hospital reviewers using the PMRT to ensure the clinical team undertaking the review are able to identify the correct mother and baby to review.

MBRRACE-UK has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential and secure and we take this responsibility very seriously. We comply with all NHS information security requirements and complete the NHS information governance assurance process (the NHS IG Toolkit) on an annual basis. We will not share any information that identifies you unless we have a legal basis for doing so.

The inclusion of information in the PMRT without consent

The hub for the MBRRACE-UK data collection is based at the University of Oxford. We do not seek parents' consent to collect information about them, because in order to do our work successfully we also use data for the entire population of women giving birth and the babies born to compare this information with information about babies who die. Over 720,000 babies are born in the UK every year and gaining consent from every parent would not be possible.

The MBRRACE-UK and PMRT team are both a collaboration of researchers and clinicians. Our work is supported by national pregnancy and baby loss charities across the UK.

We have discussed the issue of consent with the mother and baby charities we work with who believe strongly that, provided information is given to parents about how information about them is being used, the vast majority would support the work of MBRRACE-UK and the PMRT, since both are designed to prevent avoidable deaths in the NHS.

More information about the MBRRACE-UK data collection and why we do not try to obtain consent is available on the Information for Mothers, Parents, Families and Health Service Users page.

It is only possible to use personal information in England and Wales this way, without obtaining consent, following approval by the Secretary of State following a successful application to the Heath Research Authority Confidentiality Advisory Group for England and Wales. For the purposes of the PMRT we have made this application: 17/CAG/0150. We made a similar application to the Public Benefit and Privacy Panel for Health and Social Care for Scotland: 1718-0249

Northern Ireland has a different legal system and consent is obtained before a PMRT review is carried out. MBRRACE-UK do not receive identifiable information from Northern Ireland.

We have also applied to have the National Data Opt-Out for England waived. If you have applied via the National Data Opt-out not to have your health data used for anything other than your direct medical care this opt-out would normally be applied by Trusts and NHS Digital and they would not provide us with information about you. However, we have also applied to Heath Research Authority Confidentiality Advisory Group for England and Wales to obtained special permission so that the National Data Opt-Out is not applied. This application was made as an amendment to our existing approval 17/CAG/0150.

Opting out of having your information included

While we do not seek consent from every parent, if you are a parent whose baby is stillborn you have the right to opt-out of having your information used both for the purposes of the MBRRACE-UK national surveillance system and for the use of the PMRT to support the review of your pregnancy and your baby's care.

If you are a parent in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland whose baby had died after being born, you have the right to opt-out of having your information used both for the purposes of the MBRRACE-UK national surveillance system and for the use of the PMRT to support the review of your pregnancy and your baby's care.

If you are a parent in England whose baby has died after birth, the hospital has a legal duty under the Children Act to review the care received during pregnancy and after birth using the PMRT. This information is then provided to the local Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP) whose legal duty is to review the deaths of all children up to the age of 18 including babies.

While you do not have the right to opt out to having a hospital review of your care conducted, since this is part of standard NHS care, if you opt out of the use of the PMRT, the clinical team conducting your review will not be able to use the PMRT standardised process we have developed and will have to use another format for doing their hospital review.

If you are thinking about opting out we would ask you to please read all the information on this webpage and on the MBRRACE-UK Information Mothers, Parents, Families and Health Service Users page before making a decision.

If you decide that you would prefer that the clinical team undertaking the review of your pregnancy care and the care of your baby does not use the PMRT to support that review please let your midwife or doctor know your decision. Or you can contact the MBRRACE-UK team directly in writing and we can let your midwife or doctor know:

MBRRACE-UK
National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit
Nuffield Department of Population Health
University of Oxford
Old Road Campus
Headington
Oxford
OX3 7LF
Or
Email: mbrrace-uk@npeu.ox.ac.uk

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The National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (NPEU) is a multidisciplinary research unit based at the University of Oxford. Our work involves running randomised controlled trials, national surveillance programmes and surveys, confidential enquiries, aetiological studies and a disease register. The results of our research sit at the nexus of public and population health sciences, clinical care and health policy development.

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The Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations (MNSI) programme investigates certain cases of:

early neonatal deaths, intrapartum stillbirths and severe brain injury in babies born at term following labour in England

maternal deaths in England.

Full details of what we investigate can be found below.

Babies

Babies who meet our criteria include all term babies born following labour (at least 37 completed weeks of gestation), who have one of the following outcomes:

intrapartum stillbirth

early neonatal death

potential severe brain injury.

We do not investigate cases where health issues or congenital conditions (something that is present before or at birth) have led to the outcome for the baby.

The definition of labour that we use includes:

Any labour diagnosed by a health professional, including the latent phase (start) of labour at less than 4cm cervical dilatation.

When the mother called the maternity unit to report any concerns of being in labour, for example (but not limited to) abdominal pains, contractions, or suspected ruptured membranes (waters breaking).

Induction of labour (when labour is started artificially).

When the baby was thought to be alive following suspected or confirmed pre-labour rupture of membranes.

This means that for us to investigate a maternity incident under the MNSI criteria, the mother must have been in term labour as defined by these conditions.

We do not investigate neonatal cases where the mother has not gone into labour. For example, when a caesarean section was performed before the mother had started having contractions or ruptured her membranes.

Intrapartum stillbirth

Where the baby was thought to be alive at the start of labour and was born with no signs of life.

Early neonatal death

When the baby died within the first week of life (0-6 days) of any cause.

Potential severe brain injury

Potential severe brain injury diagnosed as occurring in the first seven days of life, when the baby:

Was therapeutically cooled (active cooling only), or

Has been diagnosed with moderate to severe encephalopathy, consisting of altered state of consciousness (lethargy, stupor or coma) and at least one of the following:

1. hypotonia;

2. abnormal reflexes including oculomotor or pupillary abnormalities;

3. absent or weak suck;

4. clinical seizures.

We no longer routinely investigate cases involving therapeutically cooled babies where there is no apparent ongoing neurological injury following cooling therapy. This would usually mean a brain MRI showing no hypoxic damage (a type of brain injury that occurs when there is a disruption in supply of oxygen to the brain) and the baby demonstrating no ongoing neurological signs or symptoms. However, this remains as one of our criteria. NHS trusts should continue to refer cases to us. We'll decide which investigations proceed based on an individual baby's clinical outcome, after discussion with the family and the NHS trust.

Maternal deaths

We investigate direct or indirect maternal deaths of women while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of pregnancy.

We may investigate some maternal deaths which do not entirely fit within these two categories.

We do not investigate cases where suicide is the cause of death.

Direct deaths

Direct deaths include those resulting from obstetric complications of the pregnant state (pregnancy, labour and after the birth), from interventions, omissions, incorrect treatment or from a chain of events resulting from any of the above.

Indirect deaths

Indirect deaths include those from previous existing disease or disease that developed during pregnancy, and which was not the result of direct obstetric causes but was aggravated by the physiological effects of pregnancy in the perinatal period (during or within 42 days of the end of pregnancy).

When we cannot investigate

Some maternity incidents that meet our criteria will have occurred before our programme began nationally in 2018, or within a period where the programme had not yet been implemented in the NHS trust where the incident took place.

There will also be some incidents with characteristics which fall close to, but not completely within, the scope of the MNSI criteria.

Due to specific conditions set out in the Directions that govern our maternity programme, we have no remit to investigate these incidents and the responsibility to complete the investigation remains with the local NHS trust.

We recognise that this may be disappointing for families who hope to see learning from their personal experience contribute to changes at a national level to improve maternity safety. Please have a look at our list of some of the other organisations who may be able to offer you help and support.

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The Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations (MNSI) programme investigates certain cases of: early neonatal deaths, intrapartum stillbirths and severe brain injury in babies born at term following labour in England maternal deaths in England. Full details of what we investigate can be found below.

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In your darkest time, we can help you to find the light.

When grief is all consuming and when there seems there can be no tomorrow, we can help you to find the strength to face each day.

With compassion, empathy and without judgement, we will support you during your most difficult of times.

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Support, Education and Training when a child dies. In your darkest time, we can help you to find the light. If you have experienced the loss of a child...

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Experiencing Loss: Miscarriage & Stillbirth

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Miscarriages and stillbirths are much more common than most people realize. It is estimated that about 10 to 20 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, but the actual number may be much higher. There are many reasons why a miscarriage may happen, but the majority are not caused by anything you have done and could not have been prevented. While stillbirths vary greatly from region to region, every year, about 2 million babies are stillborn.

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| Jewish Bereavement Counselling Service (JBCS)

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Jewish Bereavement Counselling Service (JBCS) are currently looking for members to join their STRONGER TOGETHER bereavement support group, aimed at people (60+) who have lost a partner.
Please call 0208951 3881 or email enquiries@jbcs.org.uk

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Miscarriage Assoc ,Black heritage communities

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Miscarriage Assoc ,Black heritage communities

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Pregnancy loss within Black and Black mixed heritage communities - The Miscarriage Association

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Black women have a 43% increased risk of miscarriage compared to white women. We strongly support the urgent need to understand why this is the case and to close that gap.

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Donating after bereavement | The HMB - Human Milk Foundation

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When dealing with bereavement, every family should be given support and information to help them make decisions about donating breastmilk.

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Beliefs about death and dying, and life after death Sikhs believe the soul goes through a cycle of rebirths, with the ultimate objective being to break the cycle and be reunited with God. They believe that the present life is influenced by what happened in previous ones and the current life will set the scene for the next. Expression of grief Mourning amongst the family and their relatives begins immediately and is undertaken discreetly in the family home. White or light colours are worn during mourning. The coffin is taken to the family home where it is left open for friends and family to pay their respects. It is then taken to the Gurdwara where hymns and prayers are sung for the person who has died. If appropriate, food may be brought to the family home as a gesture of help in their time of need.   The family remains in mourning for several days after the funeral and may listen to readings from the Guru Granth Sahib (Holy Book). Funerals and customs  The body is cremated as soon as possible after death. A short service follows at a crematorium, during which the eldest son (or other child or family member, depending on the family) presses the button for the coffin to move behind the curtain. Any member of the Sikh faith, including women, may attend a funeral, alongside members of other faiths. Both men and women cover their heads at a funeral. After the funeral, prayers and a meal are usually held at the Gurdwara. The ashes may be taken back to India to be scattered. In the UK they may be sprinkled in the sea or a river. Support organisations Sikh Helpline Network of Sikh Organisations Lasting Post: Etiquette for a Sikh funeral Our grateful thanks for their input into this resource to: Suman Mumtaz, Child Bereavement UK Maninder Hayre, Child Bereavement UK Visit our page: How we can support you for more on our services. You can also call our Helpline 0800 02 888 40, email helpline@childbereavementuk.org, or use Live Chat on our website.

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Please note that the content of the following books do not necessarily express the opinions of the Miscarriage Association. Most books should be available from good bookshops and often through the internet. Books marked out of print may be available online or through your library.

By clicking on the title of each book, in most cases, a new window will open at Amazon, the online retailer. If you purchase a book via this link, it will generate a commission payment to the Miscarriage Association (at no cost to you). Prices shown here are only a guide - copies may also be available in hardback and/or second hand.
A loss misunderstood PIERIS, Jaclyn
ISBN: 978-0-99094-248-1

The story of the author's challenging path to parenthood, written gently, clearly and with insight. Questions are posed at the end of each chapter to provide couples with an opportunity to put their own stories and their range of emotions down on paper.

Published by Changing Lives Press 2016.
A Piece of My Heart. Living Through the Grief of Miscarriage, Stillbirth or Infant Death FUMIA, Molly
A personal account of how grief at the loss of a baby can eventually lead to healing.

£12.99 (in print) Published by Conari Press 2000
A Thousand Splendid Suns HOSSEINI, Khaled
Novel featuring pregnancy loss

£11.99 (in print) Published by Bloomsbury 2007
BERGER-GROSS, Jessica
A collection of personal stories from writers that have all experienced miscarriage.

£15.00 (only from USA) Published by Penguin Group 2007
CRUTTENDEN HAINES, Paula
A very moving and powerful collection of poetry written by parents who have lost a child before or after birth. Copies also available from The Miscarriage Association. Limited availability.

£5.00 (in print) Published by Dillons 1992
Beyond Childlessness: For Every Woman Who Ever Wanted to Have a Child - And Didn't BLACK, Rachel & SCULL, Louise
This book is aimed primarily at women over 35 who are learning to live with their childless state and is mainly a series of extremely insightful quotes regarding infertility; grieving processes; coping mechanisms and moving on, including a very interesting section on the fear of old age. Highly recommended for anyone in the position of trying to cope and accept their childlessness.

£12.99 (in print) Published by Rodale International Ltd 2005
Coming to Term: Uncovering the Truth About Miscarriage
Written by a science journalist with personal experience of recurrent miscarriage, this book sets out to gather the most comprehensive and accurate information on miscarriage, but also includes personal stories of pregnancy loss and success. His conclusions: that good quality research studies show that the chance of a successful outcome after previous loss is much higher than is usually quoted; and that for unexplained recurrent loss, the most successful 'treatment' appears to be tender loving care.

£9.95 (in print) Published by Rutgers University Press 2007
Coping with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome CRAGGS-HINTON, Christine & BALEN, Prof. Adam. H
This book is both very informative and helpful. It helps to give a clearer understanding of the condition.

£7.99 (in print) Published by Sheldon 2008
Empty Cradle, Broken Heart DAVIS, Deborah L, PhD.
A book that is highly recommended for anyone wanting to read about the emotional aspects of miscarriage.

£(contact publisher) (in print) Published by Fulcrum Publishing 1996

A set of ten short stories, each written by a father describing the death of his baby. This book describes the pain from the man's perspective, and the triangle of emotions he feels for his partner, his lost child and himself.

£9.99 (in print) Published by Bosun Publications 2005
STONE, Hannah
Includes others' experience of pregnancy loss, showing just how common it is and letting us know we are not alone. Well written.

£9.50 (in print) Published by Lulu.com 2006
Getting Pregnant and Staying Pregnant
Well researched, it looks at overcoming infertility and also the management of 'high risk' pregnancy. Informative and easy to read, it explains complex terminology in simple terms and with the use of useful diagrams. Limited availability.

£12.99 (in print) Published by Hunter House 1999
LOTHROP, Hannah
Focusing primarily on stillbirth, the book provides a valuable insight into the sense of loss felt by parents and provides tools for coping with the loss of a baby in pregnancy or at birth.

£9.99 (in print) Published by Da Capo Press 2004
Hidden Loss: Miscarriage and Ectopic Pregnancy HEY, V ITZIN, C & SAUNDERS, L
Reprinted and updated, this is a book offering personal accounts, the experience of bereavement, GP and hospital practice, and information about the known causes of miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy. Offers a feminist approach to pregnancy loss.

£7.99 (in print) Published by Women's Press 1996

Gives a personal insight into the experiences, feelings and needs of families following late miscarriage and stillbirth. Limited availability.

£4.95 (in print) Published by A & A Farmar 1994
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things MCGREGOR, Jon
Novel featuring pregnancy loss

£6.99 (in print) Published by Bloomsbury 2003
Living with Hughes Syndrome: Your Essential Guide to 'Sticky Blood' HOLDEN, Triona
Excellent account of the auto-immune disease Hughes Syndrome, combining detail and personal accounts of sufferers. The whole body is taken into account (i.e. not just pregnancy-related).

£6.99 (in print) Published by Sheldon Press (Order forms available from the M.A.) 2002
DI CLEMENTE, Mario
A father's account of the first year after the loss of his son, who died when he was one day old. The book is moving, the poems bring tears, and the author pulls no punches in describing his devastation. One of the ways he came to terms with his loss was by writing a monthly letter to his son and these letters form the backbone of the book.

£9.99 (in print) Published by Bosun Publications 2004
EWING, Sarah
This book offers comfort and advice for those mourning the loss of a child through miscarriage, stillbirth, neo-natal or cot death. It includes personal testimonies, practical tips and suggestions and personal accounts of coping strategies.

£7.99 (in print) Published by Sheldon Press 2005
MOORHAWK, Gilli
A book of hope for those seeking comfort, with personal accounts from the author, other women - and some men - who have had successful pregnancies after infertility and loss. For people who are looking for some light at the end of the tunnel and some positive news, the book provides good support and some hopeful and really uplifting stories.

£9.99 (in print) Published by Aphrodite Books 2006
Miscarriage After Infertility: A Woman's Guide to Coping FREDA, Margaret Comerford & SEMELSBERGER, Carrie F
An exploration of the feelings which might be experienced when a woman miscarries after having suffered fertility problems. Limited availability.

£(contact publisher) (only from USA) Published by Fairview Press 2003
Miscarriage, Medicine and Miracles YOUNG, Bruce. K & ZAVATTO, Amy
Available from April 2009: This book will benefit both those looking for medical advice or answers but also those looking for some comfort. As the title suggests, Dr Young appears to write from the standpoint that there is always hope.

£10.16 (in print) Published by Bantam
Miscarriage: Guidelines for Good Practice MOULDER, Christine
Guidelines for professionals extracted from: Moulder, Christine. Miscarriage: Women's Experiences and Needs.

£(contact publisher) (from The MA) Published by The Miscarriage Association
Miscarriage: What Every Woman Needs to Know - A Positive New Approach REGAN, Professor Lesley
Offers clear and well written current information on recurrent miscarriage. The author describes her professional experience and gives information on the current thinking on causes, tests and potential treatment of miscarriage, including supportive care in pregnancy.

£8.99 (in print) Published by Orion 2001
Miscarriage: Women Sharing From the Heart ALLEN, Marie & MARKS, Shelley
Sensitively written with shared experiences of 100 women who have suffered miscarriage, this book is recommended as a resource for women and those close to her. Excellent ideas and examples of how to access deep feelings to help move towards grieving and healing. Limited availability.

£9.99 (in print) Published by John Wiley & Sons Limited 1993
Miscarriage: Women's Experiences and Needs MOULDER, Christine
Highly recommended. Emphasises the importance of women's needs. For general/professional use.

£12.99 (in print) Published by Routledge (Order forms available from the M.A.) 2001
Our Stories of Miscarriage FALDET, R & FITTON, K
Collections of reflections, short stories, journal entries and poems. Beautiful, powerful and offers comfort and hope. Limited availability.

£11.99 (in print) Published by Fairview Press 1997
MCGUCKIN, Isla
A personal account of a woman's feelings during fertility treatment, a miscarriage and coming to terms with a childless future. Well-written, clear and simple to read.

£9.99 (in print) Published by Hay House Inc 2006
Planning a Baby? A Complete Guide to Pre-Conceptual Care BREWER, Dr Sarah
A well presented book aiming to give potential parents full and clear information needed before conception and during the vital first weeks of pregnancy. Contains three main sections: Information relating to the mother, father and conception. It also contains a section on miscarriage.

£8.99 (in print) Published by Vermillion 2004
Pregnancy After a Loss: A Guide to Pregnancy After a Miscarriage, Stillbirth or Infant Death CIRULLI LANHAM, Carol
Informative and supportive book for people who are pregnant of thinking of becoming pregnant after a loss. (Only available from USA - or order online from amazon.co.uk)

£14.95 (in print) Published by G P Putnam's Sons 1999
BURKE, Richard
A crime thriller with a threatened miscarriage at the centre. Not for those seeking solace from a recent miscarriage.

£10.99 (in print) Published by Orion 2006
Remembering Our Angels: Personal Stories of Healing From a Pregnancy Loss STONE, Hannah
A follow-up to Forever our Angels, this is more useful for healing and managing grief, with many good ideas of how to cope after pregnancy loss.

£12.50 (in print) Published by Lulu.com 2007
LIZZIE, Lowrie
Lizzie Lowrie shares her painful struggles to have a child, allowing us to have a sense of how that feels as miscarriage follows miscarriage. She wrestles too with her faith. For others facing similar struggles, people of any faith or of none, there is comfort to be had in knowing they are not alone and that there may be different and gentler times ahead.

£9.99 (in print) Published by Authentic. 2020
SIZOO, Lysanne
The sensitive author gives comfort to all who have lost babies. Her humour is well used, a relief in such a deep topic. It makes you feel human, less alone and uplifted. Ultimately giving hope.

£6.50 (in print) Published by Librario Publishing Ltd. 2005
The Cervical Stitch (Shirodkar Suture): What It's Like
A good practical guide to the effects of a Cervical Stitch gathered from the experiences of women having a stitch. It clearly details the benefits, and drawbacks from the woman's perspective. Limited availability.

£2.50 (in print) Published by Miscarriage Association (Also available as a photocopy from the M.A.) 1986
The Time Traveller's Wife NIFFENEGGER, Audrey
Novel featuring pregnancy loss. An unusual love story between Henry and Clare. Henry involuntarily time travels through his and Clare's life.

£7.99 (in print) Published by Vintage 2005
These Precious Little People BRUNKER, Frankie & GAMBLE, Gillian (illustrations)
A beautiful book, which explains baby loss in a simple way for children. It covers a range of situations and emotions, providing comfort and helping to make things a bit easier to talk about.

£8.00 (in print) Published by Independent Publishing Network 2018

Balanced and thought-provoking, recognising that for many people, having an only child is not a personal choice but the result of circumstances. Limited availability.

£10.00 (in print) Published by Do It Yourself Press 2005
Trying Again: A Guide to Pregnancy After Miscarriage DOUGLAS, Ann & SUSSMAN, John R. MD
This is a detailed and informative book for anyone who has experienced the loss of a baby with a guide to feelings and practical information. It is written with sensitivity and understanding towards the mother and father. It is book that could assist friends, family and medical professionals in offering support to couples that have experienced miscarriage, stillbirth and infant loss.

£12.99 (in print) Published by Taylor Trade Publishing 2000
Understanding Infertility CAHILL, Dr D & WARDLE, Mr P
A great little volume, recommended to anyone seeking basic, easy to read information regarding fertility issues. Although not specifically dealing with miscarriage, it is full of useful information and honest expectations with regard to anyone experiencing fertility problems and outcomes.

£2.50 (in print) Published by Family Doctors Publications 2000
Understanding Pregnancy Loss: Perspectives and Issues in Care MOULDER, Christine
This book is particularly useful for professionals and those in training, pointing as it does, to the uniqueness of the individual experience.

£24.99 (in print) Published by Macmillan Press 1998
JONAS-HILL, Sophie
A moving and fast-paced novel. This book describes 40 year-old Lydia's attempts to come to terms with the loss of her four babies, whilst simultaneously dealing with the disintegration of her relationship with the father and difficult secrets between family and friends.

£10.99 (in print), £2.99 (Kindle) Published by Retreat West Books 2019
KLUGER-BELL, K
Written by a psychotherapist, this book explains the reasons behind often unaccountably strong feelings after pregnancy loss and provides an honest but reassuring analysis of the normality of such reactions. Provides guidance for a way forward out of the pain and loss. Limited availability.

£9.99 (in print) Published by William Morrow 2000
Waiting for Charlie
This story of a move from London to the country also describes the emotional rollercoaster a relationship can suffer as a result of unexplained miscarriage. Even so, it is not all doom and gloom, but rather a story of strength, determination and heart.

Price: £8.99 (in print) Milton Publishing, 2016
O'NEILL-WHITE, Siobhan & WHITE, David
This book is about a couple's personal account of miscarriage. It is a very good and comforting read to anyone who has suffered a miscarriage.

£8.95 (in print) Published by Liffey Press 2007
When a Baby Dies: The Experience of Late Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Neonatal Death KOHNER, Nancy & HENLEY, Alix
Sensitive and compassionate, this book is recommended for parents experiencing the loss of a baby. Contains personal accounts from other parents. Offers information on the reasons for the death, grieving, getting support and the handling of the loss in hospitals. Also has two chapters on "looking forward".

£11.99 (in print) Published by Routledge (Order forms available from the M.A.) 2001
GAMINO, Louis A & TAYLOR COONEY, Ann
A concise, comforting and practical guide for parents who have experienced the loss of a child through miscarriage, stillbirth or newborn death.

£3.99 (in print) Published by Augsburg (Order forms available from the M.A.) 2002

A beautifully illustrated storybook for children who have been affected by the loss of a sibling. The book is written from the experience of stillbirth, but is a helpful read for families who have lost a baby through miscarriage too. It's an honest, sensitive and comforting story about two brothers trying to decide what to do, on what would have been their sister Lydie's first birthday.

£9.99 (in print) Published 2017
SIMPSON, Deborah
A collection of poetry written by Deborah Simpson as a tribute to her son Gabriel, miscarried in August 2002. Each poem expresses her thoughts and feelings at a different time.

£2.00 (in print) Published by Elven Hearts Paperback 2003
Your Pregnancy Week by Week REGAN, Professor Lesley
Professor Lesley Regan explains the process of pregnancy and birth in language accessible to everyone. There is a brief section addressing the subject of miscarriage but the emphasis is on the positive, that most women do carry a baby to full term. N.B. Each section is illustrated with detailed photographs of the baby's development.

£18.99 (in print) Published by Dorling Kindersley 2005

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Books about pregnancy loss - The Miscarriage Association

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Please note that the content of the following books do not necessarily express the opinions of the Miscarriage Association. Most books should be available from good bookshops and often through the internet. Books marked out of print may be available online or through your library.

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Sands - Saving babies' lives. Supporting bereaved families.

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Reviews and investigations | Sands - Saving babies’ lives. Supporting bereaved families.

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When a baby dies after 22 weeks’ gestation, the hospital or hospitals where the mother and baby were cared for review the care they received to understand if anything could have been done differently to prevent the baby from dying. Some deaths are also investigated by bodies who are independent of the NHS.
Find out more about reviews and investigations in these FAQs.

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If you would like to discuss a Christmas order, please call us on 01268 293000.

We have made provisions for our Royal Mail deliveries during this time.

When someone you love becomes a memory...
that memory becomes a treasure...

Ashes into Glass ® is the leading creator of ashes jewellery for our clients in the UK and worldwide. Fine jewellery for you to connect with your loved one by wearing it or just holding it in your hand.

Please click here for your free ordering pack

When someone you love becomes a memory...
that memory becomes a treasure...

Ashes into Glass ® is the leading creator of ashes jewellery for our clients in the UK and worldwide. Fine jewellery for you to connect with your loved one by wearing it or just holding it in your hand.

Please click here for your free ordering pack

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Turn your loved one's ashes into jewellery that lasts a lifetime. Ashes into Glass ® help you celebrate their memory through exquisite ashes jewellery

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Aching Arms - the charity bringing comfort after baby loss

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The charity Aching Arms is here to support and help you if you've suffered the loss of a baby during pregnancy, at birth or soon after.

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Welcome - Order of Service for Funerals & Weddings - Orchid Memories

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Personalised printing services for wedding & funerals. Order of service - Printed Signs - Banners - Photo Boards - Stationery and much more!

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Heart in their Hand | Bereavement and remembrance jewellery

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‘Heart in their Hand’ is a beautiful project which offers bereaved families a gift that is shared with their baby or loved one.

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Births, ceremonies and deaths - Kent County Council

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Includes: births, deaths, weddings and civil partnerships and citizenship ceremonies.

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The Worst Girl Gang Ever Foundation is now a registered charity! Here's the big goal.. To live in a world where the experiences of baby loss and infertility

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Baby Loss & Miscarriage — Chana Charity Ltd

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A Book for Children and Parents Who Have Experienced Pregnancy Loss This beautifully illustrated, simple, clear story is designed to help a young child understand what has happened when there has been a pregnancy loss. The book addresses the sadness that a child experiences when the anticipated baby has died. The child's fears and feelings of guilt are addressed as well as other confusing feelings. Perhaps most important, the book includes the family's experience of going on with life while always remembering their baby. The child reading the book is left with a sense of reassurance that life continues and he is still a vital part of a loving family

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A Book for Children and Parents Who Have Experienced Pregnancy Loss This beautifully illustrated, simple, clear story is designed to help a young child understand what has happened when there has been a pregnancy loss. The book addresses the sadness that a child experiences when the anticipated b...

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"...I am still your sibling, and I love you." My Sibling Still is written as a love letter from a sibling lost to miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death to any surviving siblings. It walks through the emotions that a child and his or her family may experience following a loss while also depicting the loving presence of the deceased child in the family's life. With gentle words and comforting pictures, this book offers a beautiful way for the entire family to remember and honor any lost little ones. My Sibling Still is accessible whether the loss happened years ago or yesterday, whether a sibling was born at the time of the loss or came afterwards. Most of all, with an affirming message of hope through suffering, it reminds us that our relationships with the little ones who have gone before us continue after death.

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My Sibling Still: for those who've lost a sibling to miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant death

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Buy My Sibling Still: for those who've lost a sibling to miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant death by Lacourrege, Megan, Wichterich, Joshua (ISBN: 9780578516615) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

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With over 1.5 million copies sold, this accessible, bestselling picture book phenomenon about the unbreakable connections between loved ones has healed generations of children and adults alike . Also available: Spanish edition (El hilo invisible ) and a companion workbook ( The Invisible String Workbook ). The Invisible String the perfect tool for coping with all kinds of separation anxiety, loss, and grief. In this relatable and reassuring contemporary classic, a mother tells her two children that they're all connected by an invisible string. "That's impossible!" the children insist, but still they want to know more: "What kind of string?" The answer is the simple truth that binds us all: An Invisible String made of love. Even though you can't see it with your eyes, you can feel it deep in your heart, and know that you are always connected to the ones you love. Does everybody have an Invisible String? How far does it reach? Does it ever go away? This heartwarming picture book for all ages explores questions about the intangible yet unbreakable connections between us, and opens up deeper conversations about love.The Invisible String offers a very simple approach to overcoming loneliness, separation, or loss with an imaginative twist that children easily understand and embrace, and delivers a particularly compelling message in today's uncertain times. This special paperback edition includes vibrant new illustrations and an introduction from the author."This book is a beautiful way to begin to try, as parents, to instill in children the impenetrable power of the heart, the energy of love, and the flow that can be felt from the grace in every moment." -Tony Robbins

Parents, educators, therapists, and social workers alike have declared The Invisible String Backpack: Your very own tool kit for school-and life! The Invisible String Workbook : Creative Activities to Comfort, Calm, and Connect The Invisible Leash:

Recommended and adopted by parenting blogs, bereavement support groups, hospice centers, foster care and social service agencies, military library services, church groups, and educators, An Invisible String Story About the Loss of a Pet​ The Invisible Web:

Read all the books in The Invisible String series: An Invisible String Story Celebrating Love and Universal Connection You Are Never Alone: An Invisible String Lullaby

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Parents, educators, therapists, and social workers alike have declared the perfect tool for coping with all kinds of separation anxiety, loss, and grief. In this relatable and reassuring contemporary classic, a mother tells her two children that they're all connected by an invisible s...

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Vishaal Foundation | In Memory of little angels

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We understand that going through the loss of a baby can be really difficult and have a big impact on mental health. Going through a new pregnancy after a loss may also have a big impact on mental health and can be an anxious journey. It can be hard to know where to turn for support, especially in different cultures and communities. We have collected some details for organisations who can offer a safe space and mental health support.

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Pregnancy Loss shows hosts and producers

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30 Best Pregnancy Loss Podcasts (Miscarriage or StillBirth) You Must Follow in 2025

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Best Pregnancy Loss Podcasts to Listen to ⋅ 1. The Worst Girl Gang Ever ⋅ 2. Awakening Worth in Childless Women ⋅ 3. Confessions of a Grieving Mother ⋅ 4. Miscarriage Stories with Arden Cartrette

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The Science Behind DARE DARE is an evidence based training program to help people overcome anxiety, panic attacks, worry, and insomnia. It is rooted in MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress reduction), […]

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Grieving the Child I Never Knew: A Devotional for Comfort in the Loss of Your Unborn or Newly Born Child

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Grieving the Child I Never Knew: A Devotional for Comfort in the Loss of Your Unborn or Newly Born Child [Wunnenberg, Kathe] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Grieving the Child I Never Knew: A Devotional for Comfort in the Loss of Your Unborn or Newly Born Child

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Providing an innovative approach to maternity support - prioritising mums from Black, Asian and mixed ethnicity backgrounds.