NHS to issue baby loss certificates for stillbirths before 24 weeks

Every year in Britain, about 250,000 pregnancies end through miscarriage — defined as the loss of a baby during the first 23 weeks of pregnancy. One in five women experience a miscarriage in their lives.

Other types of pregnancy loss include ectopic pregnancies, where a fertilised egg attempts to develop outside of the womb, affecting 11,000 women each year and molar pregnancies, where a fertilised egg cannot develop because of an abnormality, affecting 19,000.

Maria Caulfield, the minister for women’s health, said: “Losing a baby is every parent’s worst nightmare and many of us know only too well the emotional pain and suffering this can bring.”

She highlighted that a certificate of registration of stillbirth would be issued for the loss of a baby after 24 weeks’ gestation, but there had been no formal process for a loss that occurred before that point.

“For many women and their families, it is important that early pregnancy losses are recognised and remembered. We have listened and have put words into action,” Caulfield said, adding that the baby loss certificate service would allow parents to officially record and receive a certificate to acknowledge their loss if they wish to do so.

“It will hopefully go some way towards supporting parents with their grief. We know the grieving process is different for everyone and that’s why it is voluntary and free to use,” she said.

Maria Caulfield said losing a baby was every parent’s worst nightmare

LUCY NORTH/PA

The government aims to extend the retrospective 2018 cut-off point “as soon as we can”. “We appreciate that for anyone who has lost a baby the pain never ends,” Caulfield said.

The health secretary, Victoria Atkins, said the certificate will help heartbroken parents to feel supported and that the certificates were “a positive step towards better supporting women and parents affected”.

The certificates formed part of the government’s Women’s Health Strategy and were a key recommendation of an independent report published last year, the Pregnancy Loss Review, looking at how to improve care and support for women who lose a baby.

Zoe Clark-Coates, author of the report and chief executive of the pregnancy charity The Mariposa Trust, said: “I’m thrilled that from today millions of families will finally get the formal acknowledgement that their baby existed and I hope this will help their grieving process.”

Samantha Collinge, the co-chair of the review and bereavement lead midwife at the George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust, said: “Miscarriage and other types of pre 24 weeks baby loss is often minimised and treated as a ‘clinical event’ or ‘just one of those things’ rather than the loss of a baby and sadly the emotional impact of the loss is often disregarded.

“Zoe and I hope that the introduction of a national certificate of baby loss will give bereaved parents the official recognition that their babies did exist and that their babies’ lives, however brief, really do matter.”

Ruth Bender Atik, the national director of the Miscarriage Association, said: “Even the earliest of losses can be deeply distressing, both emotionally and physically. It means the loss not only of this pregnancy but also of the hopes, plans and dreams that they had for this new life.

The lack of formal acknowledgement of the loss “of the tiniest of lives” could compound parents’ grief, she said, and the scheme would make “a genuinely positive difference”.

Cherilyn Mackrory, the Conservative MP for Truro and Falmouth, is determined to be one of the very first parents to apply for the government’s new baby loss certificate.

The 47-year-old entered Parliament in 2019 less than a year after losing her second daughter, Lily, at 21 weeks who was diagnosed with a severe form of spina bifida in the womb.

Two years later she stood up in the Commons and made an emotional intervention calling for more support for bereaved families after they had lost a baby.

Mackrory admitted that parents could “never really let go” when describing the moment she had to terminate her pregnancy as making a “choice that is no choice at all”.

“To anyone who this has happened to, despite what you might see, the sun will shine again,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like it now, but one day it just does, and for me the dark clouds of shock, anger, guilt and dreadful, dreadful sadness do eventually dissipate.”

Mackrory said on Tuesday the certificates would help her and thousands of other parents help come to terms with their loss.

“It really is big to have that piece of paper with your baby’s name on it to say that baby existed,” she said. “I can’t tell you how important that is in that grieving process.

“I have a little box that I keep all her things in and I will be doing that and I will be making sure her certificate goes with her things.”

Mackrory said that amidst the cut and thrust of politics, the policy had been one which had brought MPs from both sides of the aisle together to do something which mattered to people.

“Some people might think that this is only a small part of what we’re achieving here in parliament but for those families it is huge.”

“When I spoke in the Commons,” she said. “and I saw Parliament at its best. It was parliamentarians looking out for each other being very human. And showing the rest of the country that actually we’re human too and we’ve suffered, we’ve had these stories.”

“If we can reach one person that makes them feel slightly better, because they’re not alone, then we’re doing our jobs properly.”