Midwife 'angry and disturbed' over mass graves

Retired midwife Gloria McQuade says she was told stillborn babies would be buried alongside another person

A retired nurse, who trained and worked as a midwife in hospitals and maternity homes on Merseyside during the 1970s, has said she is "shocked and disturbed" after learning about the use of mass graves for stillborn infants born decades ago.

Gloria McQuade, 79, from Prenton, Wirral, said during her midwife career she was told stillborn infants would be laid to rest with another person being buried on the next available day.

But instead many were buried in mass graves, with sometimes hundreds of babies put together in one unmarked grave.

Ms McQuade said she felt "very angry" she had been lied to and would "hate anybody" to think she knew anything about what happened to those babies.

"It is very disturbing really," she said.

"I was told when I delivered a baby to make sure whether that baby breathed.

"If it took one breath, it was a live birth and would then have a funeral and obviously be registered as a live birth.

"If the baby didn't breathe at all, then that baby would be buried with another person".

'Very upsetting'

The former nurse said she was given this information during training with senior midwives who would be alongside her while she delivered babies.

"As far as I was aware that is what all the midwives believed," she said.

"It had probably come down; they [senior midwives] were probably told the same thing, and they were telling students, and that's the way it was.

"I can't speak for senior staff who told me that, but as far as I would think, that's what they thought, and that's the way everybody believed it was happening".

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Before and even into the 1980s, the bodies of stillborn and miscarried babies were often taken away by hospital workers from families who were not given any details of their resting place.

According to recent Freedom of Information requests, at least 89,000 miscarried or stillborn babies were buried in mass graves around the country.

They are usually areas of unmarked and unconsecrated ground.

Procedures for what happened after a stillbirth varied at individual hospitals and so funeral and cremation arrangements differed too.

But bereaved parents were never told about their babies being buried in mass graves.

Ms McQuade said the idea of mass graves had never even entered her head.

She said: "I have been quite shocked at some of the stories, it's very upsetting."