Siblings feel baby loss too, say bereaved parents

Kerry Hurt lost her baby Theo seven years ago

Parents whose babies have died shortly after being born are calling for more support to be made available for children left bereft by the loss of their siblings.

Kerry Hurt said when she lost her baby Theo seven years ago, she dreaded having to tell her daughter that her baby brother was not coming home.

Forever Stars, a Nottinghamshire-based charity that helps parents, is aiming to raise £60,000 to expand its work.

While affected families say nothing can truly ease the pain of baby loss, they have been joining in fundraising efforts to help children come to terms with grief.

'Awkward thing'

In the UK, an estimated one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, while one in 250 babies are stillborn.

Ms Hurt said explaining the death of a baby to her daughter when she was so young made the grief even more difficult.

"I was devastated for us, but I was really devastated for her," she said

"Seeing my scan and seeing my stomach growing, she saw that I was going to all the appointments and stuff and she saw the scan photos and she was expecting us to come home with a baby, and we had to explain to her that there wasn't going to be.

"It's such an awkward thing to say especially to someone that is four years old and doesn't understand death anyway."

Dan Soundy captained the Forever Stars team in memory of his son Noah

Forever Stars, which is based in Beeston, estimates raising £60,000 will allow it to support 60 families.

Its latest fundraising events have included a football match where every player was honouring a baby they had lost.

Dan Soundy, who captained the Forever Stars team in memory of his son Noah, said he was given time with his baby son in a specialist suite at Nottingham's Queen's Medical Centre, which was funded by the charity he now supports.

"It's a room that obviously no-one ever wants to go in, but to be able to spend some time there with him really did mean a lot," he said.

"It basically meant we got to spend a couple of days with our son - there was a cold cot in there and we had a couple of days just us away from the world."

Forever Stars founder Richard Daniels lost his daughter Emily 12 years ago

Forever Stars founder Richard Daniels sadly knows all too well just how vital that support for siblings can be, having lost his daughter Emily 12 years ago.

"We had a five-year-old son, and I had to come home and tell him that the sister we had been getting him all excited about and including him in all the plans for the nursery, that had all stopped, and that Emily wasn't coming home," he said.

"He went from being a really happy-go-lucky child to be being a really quite angry young man and wanting to break things and being cross with us for not bringing Emily home.

"We looked for what we could do to support him and play therapy was the avenue but it is such a scarce resource."

A fundraising football match was played between two teams where all the players had suffered baby loss