Couple warn travelling to UK for post mortem may lead to more infant deaths
Simon and Alanna Salter lost their daughter Isobel in 2015, who was stillborn at just 39 weeks
Last updated 14th Nov 2018
A couple who suffered a stillbirth are warning having to travel to England for a post mortem may result in more infant deaths.
It follows the news that from January there will be no pediatric or perinatal pathologist working in Northern Ireland.
That means when a baby is stillborn, or dies in infancy, their body will have to be sent to Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool for a post-mortem examination.
Simon and Alanna Salter said having to travel to England may put couples off having a post mortem, which in their case, could have led to more stillbirths.
Alanna explains:
"It's just horrendous, it's really unthinkable and my worry would be that this would put us off having a post mortem.
"without having one, we wouldn't have found out that their was a condition in the placenta that led to the death of our baby. That condition is only visible under a microscope so there was no way of looking at the baby they could have told us what went wrong.
"Because we then got that cause of death and knew what the condition was, we were able to have treatment in our two other pregnancies. I needed to be on a lot of medication to make sure the same thing didn't happen again. And if we didn't know that, we could have lost the next baby and the next baby as we wouldn't have been on that medication.
"It's really worrying to think that this could actually increase the chance of further loss for people who are already grieving."
Alanna told us how hard the situation was for them, and couldn't begin to imagine having to make a decision to send your baby over to Liverpool.
"It's just so devastating, you're barely functioning as it is, in the case of a stillbirth you've just given birth as well, so the thought of having to arrange the travel would just be impossible, you can barely function to get yourself dressed and washed."
Simon as warned that having to travel to the UK would take away from the precious time you have with your baby.
"You have a limited time from when the child is born until the burial, and is she was taken away from us and brought over to Liverpool, obviously that would have had an impact on the time we had with our precious girl.
"It was upsetting enough having our baby girl taken away from us for an hour or two to go to the pathology labs in the royal, never mind being shipped on a plane over to Liverpool and back again.
"Parents have such a short window to make as many memories as possible, even getting photos with your baby. This process will take that away."
Around 240 autopsies are carried out on infants here annually.
Heather Reid, Public Health Specialist at Health and Social Care Board said: "We recognise that the loss of a child is one of the most devastating events that can ever happen to a family and fully accept that the prospect of the post-mortem being performed outside Northern Ireland may compound the distress experienced by families.
"While we will have to adapt our service, we want to assure parents that they will continue to have the choice of whether or not to go ahead with a hospital post-mortem. We also believe there are opportunities to provide post-mortem findings more quickly and enhance the support and information families receive.
"While it is acknowledged that a service outside of Northern Ireland is not what we would wish for, working closely with a much larger centre such as Alder Hey will provide a more robust service in the interim period."