Dumfries and Galloway parents open up about baby loss
This is part of Baby Loss Awareness Week.
“I used to see people who would ignore me because they wouldn’t know what to say to me and that was so hurtful.”
Alison Hall lost her son 29 minutes after giving birth at the Cresswell Maternity Hospital in Dumfries in April 1996.
After a healthy full three trimesters, her husband David says they had no reason to believe that something could go wrong:
“He was our third baby – we have two older girls – it was a healthy pregnancy, and everything seemed okay so there was no reason to think that there would be any problems.
“It was only when we got to Cresswell Maternity Hospital that it became problematic during delivery in an unexpected way.
“It was very dramatic. There were signs of distress. He was a little bit late, he was 41 weeks, and a big boy but nothing happened that showed he would die. He was born and still alive but clearly still in distress.
“I was with him when he was resuscitated for 20 minutes but it was clear it was futile and he died which was obviously a huge shock and was unexpected to everyone, including the staff.
“I was the one who had to go and tell Alison.”
His wife describes his saddening news as a “relief in some ways” because she was left in the unknown for almost half an hour by herself not knowing what happened to her baby and why he was taken away.
“They nurses took my son away and I just thought at the time that they would bring him back to me and he would be okay, but David came back to tell me that he had died.”
Their two girls were still at home expecting Alison and David to bring home a baby brother and even made pom poms to go on his pram.
Alison still attached the accessories which were on show at his funeral.
To help process the traumatic event, the midwife advised them to make as many memories as they could as a family with Ruaridh so after breaking the news to their girls, they all went to see him and took turns holding him and got photos which are now in his memory box.
Getting back into a day-to-day routine was hard for Alison.
“I was left on my own at home when the girls went back to school. I didn’t know what to do with myself. You really do feel like some days you could end it all because it was just so painful.
“I used to see people who would ignore me because they wouldn’t know what to say to me and that was so hurtful. You do feel really awkward going out and facing people, even going out to the school gates for the first time was just really painful.”
“In our day, it was thought that when babies die, that was just a thing, part of life, it wasn’t a big deal – especially if you had other children, you were lucky to have other children.
“It was a ‘go home and get on with your life’ attitude’ but now it’s recognised that this is a real thing, this is a real person.”
Skipping forward to the present, the Dumfries parents of four have welcomed a rainbow baby and have extended a national charity (SANDS) by branching out to the region, offering many platforms of support.
They have also donated a rainbow room to DGRI, allowing families to spend their final hours saying goodbye in a private and peaceful environment.
Every day, 13 babies die before, during, or not long after birth.
The Office of National Statistics has reported that between 2010 and 2022, the number of babies that are stillborn or die within the first few months of life is gradually declining from 8.1 to 6.8 deaths per 1,000 births.
Baby Loss Awareness Week is starting today, allowing families to open up about their stories and connect with other people who have experienced similar events.
Glenluce mother, Clarie Fleming, says this week gives her the chance to talk about the loss of her first child in 2012.
In June of that year, she received devasting news.
After a visit to the doctors, Claire was told there was no heartbeat, but she would still need to go up to DGRI to give birth.
“So, I was told in Stranraer ‘You’ve lost your baby, your baby has died’ and then we were told straight away ‘You have to go down to Dumfries to give birth’.
“I didn’t really understand what was happening, I think I was still in shock.”
“It was the next day that I got induced so I had to come home knowing that my baby had died inside me.
“The next morning, I was induced, and my baby was born around 5 that afternoon.”
To this day, she still doesn’t know why she lost her baby or how it happened.
She says people often don't know what to say when she brings up her loss:
“I think it’s something that is there all the time. I find it really difficult because when people say ‘Oh, how many children do you have?’, I want to say four, but it opens up too many questions so then it’s ‘What age are they, what school do they go to’ – there’s a lot of things that come with it.”
She and her husband Robert got married on the anniversary she gave birth to her stillborn daughter Abby, to help keep her memory alive.
A few years later, the couple were able to have three children who all know about their big sister.
“She is somebody that we talk about all the time. We celebrate her birthday; we have special days where we talk about her.
“It’s not in a morbid way but my children have been brought up knowing they have a big sister and for me, that’s a really important part of it, knowing that she is a really big part of our family whether she is here or not.”
“Baby Loss Awareness Week is something I find that is really important because it gives me almost an excuse to talk about her and raise awareness.”
Recently, a newly married couple from Dalswinton has suffered from two miscarriages.
Vika Paul never knew the gender of her babies and struggled to come to terms with her loss.
During her second pregnancy in February last year, she started developing some pain that felt like period cramps.
Following her last experience only a few months prior, she phoned the midwife who confirmed her worst fear…
She was having a miscarriage.
“The feeling was quite horrible because it happened again.
“I phoned the midwife because I was bleeding and had period cramps which you shouldn’t have when you’re pregnant.
“I also tested positive for COVID that day, so I’ve always wondered if that had anything to do with it but once I told the midwife, she told me I was having a miscarriage.
“As soon as that call finished – my signal at home was quite bad so I took the call outside – I remember just being absolutely hysterical.
“I just screamed out and I didn’t care if my neighbours heard. All you could hear was my crying in the woods, it just echoed.”
Vika says her husband Chris was her rock throughout what felt like a never-ending pain and supported her through the dark times.
“We were both very upset but because it was my body and it was happening inside me, it was emotionally affecting me.
“My husband was very supportive and always encouraged me to talk to him and helped with my thoughts.
“We would go for walks with our dog, go out for meals, and do activities as well just to bond together again and do something nice, not forgetting that we’re still young and still together and focus on how to support each other.”
The NHS supplied her with charity leaflets, but she discovered the SANDS charity online through chance and reached out to the Dumfries branch.
It just so happens that Alison Hall who lost her baby in 1996 founded the Dumfries charity branch after she found a severe lack of support.
Once Vika enquired, the pair met up and Alison and another support member were able to comfort her through this difficult time and aid her with what turned out to be crucial information.
“They understood me and had been through something similar. They knew what to tell me and that knowledge helped me to open up.
“After the meeting with Alison and Ashleigh, I went home and was very emotional and it would let me kind of cleanse my mind”, says Vika.
This was when she found out about the Christmas service the charity put on every year at the church which she found to be a good outlet for her grief.
Choirs sang and there was a Christmas tree where she and Chris wrote out the names they had picked for their children and left a special message for them and hung it on the tree amongst the other names and messages from other grieving families.
“It is so simple but so cathartic. It feels so good to do that and it’s very emotional, I even cried through the service.
“When you get home, you kind of reflect on it and feel glad that you did that, even if it’s just going to be on a Christmas tree, but it’s never forgotten.”
The SANDS (The Stillbirth and Neonatal Death) Charity aims to help grieving families and “promotes research to better understand the causes of baby deaths, improve maternity safety and save babies’ lives.”
Alison and her husband David hosted the start of the commemorative week last night at the Crichton Central where families could attach ribbons in memory of a child.
They were one of 199 ribbon displays all over the UK including 18 in Scotland.
This is the biggest number ever for the SANDS ribbon display for Baby Loss Awareness Week.
There were blue and pink ribbons to represent both sexes of the babies and yellow ones were for families who never knew the gender.
Clea Harmer, Chief Executive at Sands, said: “We are so grateful to everyone who has given their time to make the biggest-ever collection of Sands Ribbon Displays for Baby Loss Awareness Week.
“Every ribbon is hand made with love and many people take so much care writing the names of babies on the ribbons, their own and those of people in their local community.
“These displays are so important as pregnancy and baby loss can be a hidden form of bereavement, and many parents and families feel isolated or that their losses are not recognised.
“A Ribbon Display is something you cannot walk past without wondering, what is it about? They can really help start conversations which helps to break the silence that still surrounds pregnancy and baby loss.
“Seeing the photos of all the displays on social media really gives the feeling of a connected ribbon of love stretching across Scotland and the whole of the UK.
“Thank you to everyone who has helped build these beautiful visions of remembrance.”