Baby Loss

I call Andy MacNae, who will speak for about 15 minutes.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered baby loss.

I am deeply privileged to be opening this debate in the middle of national Baby Loss Awareness Week, and in advance of the international “wave of light” on Wednesday. I want to start by welcoming the bereaved families who have joined us in the Galleries, and particularly for doing so at such a late hour: they have shown fantastic stamina in sitting through some fascinating business. I know that a number are also watching online. I have no doubt this will, for many of us, be an emotive debate that will bring back many memories, so I say this to those in the Galleries: I am grateful for your courage in joining us, and your presence lifts this whole debate and this whole day. I know that for many of you, your story is one of being let down by the system. While today cannot undo that, I hope that this national spotlight on what you have experienced, and our shared commitment to fundamental change, will be of some comfort. I also thank everyone in the Chamber for their attendance today, and for the cross-party support that the debate has received.

This is a personal topic for me and for my family. Our daughter Mallorie was born in 2015 with Edwards’ syndrome, a condition that we were told was not compatible with life; yet she lived for five days, and died in my arms. Those days were both the hardest of our lives and the time that we value most. We spent those days in the butterfly suite, a bereavement room funded by the local baby loss charity Friends of Serenity. Throughout that time, we received amazing support from the maternity team at Burnley hospital. I want to take this opportunity to thank, once again, all the team at Burnley, and to recognise the amazing work that baby loss charities do throughout the UK.

The years since Mallorie’s death have been challenging. The impacts of losing a child do not end after a week or a month or a year; they stay with us. My wife, Vanessa, suffered depression and post-traumatic stress disorder following Mallorie’s death, and has never been able to fully recover and return to her work as a health visitor. For 10 years she has had consistent difficulties in accessing sustained specialist mental health support, instead being bounced between short-term interventions and generalists. Her NHS career has now been terminated on grounds of ill health, and she is back on a five-month waiting list for therapy. Yet we count ourselves among the lucky ones. We had as good a hospital experience as we could have had in the circumstances, and time to prepare for what we knew was an inevitable outcome. We did not leave feeling that more could have been done, or that we had been let down; we felt listened to and supported in the weeks that followed.

Sadly, however, as we will hear today, far, far too many families have had the very opposite of that experience. We will hear heartbreaking accounts of babies who should not have died, of families’ concerns being belittled and ignored, of practices that fall well below any acceptable standard, and of institutional cultures of denial and cover-up. I believe that as we reach the end of today’s debate, no one will be in any doubt that addressing the long-term systemic failings in maternity care once and for all must be an imperative for this Government.

It is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae). I thank him for working with me and the hon. Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) to secure the debate, and I thank my many colleagues on the all-party parliamentary group on patient safety. I would also like to thank the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), for being here himself today. It means an enormous amount to families up and down the country to see that commitment from him. I know it is an issue in which he has taken enormous personal interest.

I think the most difficult meeting I had when I was doing his job many years ago was with a man called Carl Hendrickson, who came to see me a few days before I stood at that Dispatch Box to give the statement on the Morecambe Bay inquiry. Carl lost both his wife and his son at Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust. A midwife mistook some fitting by his wife as just fainting. His wife died an hour later from an embolism. The next day, his son Chester died from brain damage. He came to see me with his 11-year-old son, Conrad. I will never forget it, because it was obviously going to be a very difficult meeting and I asked him whether he would like his son to sit outside with some of the civil servants while we discussed what happened. He said no, because he wanted his son to know, for the rest of his life, that he had taken his concerns about what went wrong right to the very top and asked awkward questions. And that was what he did.

I owe a great debt to the Morecambe Bay families: to Carl and to Simon Davey, Liza Brady, James Titcombe and many others. The American thinker Margaret Mead had a saying:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

For me, those Morecambe Bay families were that small group of thoughtful, committed people, along with the families from Mid Staffs, Shrewsbury and Telford, East Kent, Nottingham and many other places.

Order. I will now call the next co-sponsor of the debate. After she has spoken, there will be a five-minute time limit.

As a harmed mother from Nottinghamshire, I gave birth to my son by emergency C-section because health professionals treated me with utter contempt, ignored me and did not do as they should, and then said it was all my fault. My son was not put in my arms when he was born; instead, he was rushed over to a consultant to start him breathing. While I wish I had time to share the details of what happened in the Chamber so that others can understand the severity of a failing system, time does not permit me.

To those who have lost a baby, we know that when the world says, “I’m sorry for your loss”, it sounds thin and distant, because what was lost was not just a child. Families have lost first breaths, first steps, first days of school, and a lifetime of “I love you.” They have lost hope.

We must stop whispering about baby loss in the shadows. We must speak about the preventable errors, missed opportunities and systemic failures in our maternity services that have turned dreams into dust. Grief is a fact, but these failures are not inevitable. For too long the grief of affected families has been treated as a private sorrow and an isolated tragedy, but let me be clear: these are not isolated incidents. The heartbreak and loss are a consequence of a system that is failing, where warnings are missed, staffing is insufficient, preventable errors steal precious futures, tragedies are swept under the carpet and families have to fight for answers.

We have heard the data and read the reports, and we have shared our devastating stories. We know the truth: maternity services are fundamentally broken and our babies are paying the price. I am not asking for a miracle, but I am demanding competence, safety and accountability, and a country where every mother who walks into a delivery room knows that she is in the safest hands possible and that her baby will be protected. Our children deserve that safety, and the children yet to come deserve it too.

I thank my hon. Friend for making such a moving speech; she is an inspirational mum, raising awareness of this. If she will allow, I will raise the case of Hayley Patrick-Copeland, a bereaved mum who has been raising awareness of baby loss and putting in place support for bereaved parents. If I may, I will also put on the record in this place, for centuries to come, the names of her children, Alya and Aleah, whom she lost. Will my hon. Friend join me in remembering them, and in commending Hayley for her inspirational work, just like my hon. Friend’s, raising awareness of baby loss?

I thank my hon. Friend; that was an important thing to say.

I was so pleased when the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced a rapid review of maternity services, which I believe he did to ensure that we get on with fixing the problems that we know are there—for example, with continuity of care—as soon as possible. It is vital that we take families with us and ensure that they are listened to and treated with respect. Let us not waste this real opportunity to change the systems that have been harming families for far too long.

The final key aspect that I would like to address is the need for true accountability. Too often, negligence leads to loss; the failures are there for everyone to see. I ask those who have recently called for a reduction in accountability this: how can accountability be reduced to improve maternity services when it is not even there? I am not talking about hounding midwives and obstetricians, but if someone makes a mistake again and again, as we saw in Nottinghamshire, families have to fight for the truth. Mothers leave hospital having been made to think that they were at fault. There has to be accountability. We need accountability and support to allow midwives to become great. Families should be clear about the process, which should work with them, so that they get answers and the truth without having to fight for them.

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech and is a great advocate on this subject. I am sure she knows about the MBRRACE-UK—Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK—data; it shows mortality rates across the country. Like Nottinghamshire, Leeds has high mortality rates—in fact, they are the highest in the UK and 70% higher than the average. Those preventable baby losses are not an accident or a statistical mistake. Does she agree that the leadership of hospital trusts with such high rates need to take accountability and fix them? This is not an issue for individual maternity units; this should be taken on by the chief executive and those at the highest level in teaching hospitals.

I absolutely agree; if we had that approach in Nottinghamshire, the story would have been very different.

This starts with us building a culture that allows people to say, “This went wrong, and this is why. I made a mistake, and I am sorry. It’s time to fix it.” We cannot accept any more maternity scandals in this country. Of course, there will be times when nothing more can be done, through nobody’s fault, but in instances where mistakes were made, clinicians need to come forward. How do we learn from mistakes if they are never identified?

Regulators such as the Care Quality Commission, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the General Medical Council need to step up. The evidence is there for all to see in Nottinghamshire: the NMC failed, the GMC failed and the CQC failed. All those organisations were informed over and over again about what was happening in Nottingham, and nothing was done—not one thing. To this day, no one has been held accountable.

I welcome the Government’s decision to publish a consultation on secondary legislation in order to modernise regulatory frameworks. I would be grateful to hear more about that. I ask the Government to involve bereaved and harmed families in the process, because regulation must work for families, and to work with organisations such as the Royal College of Midwives to ensure that clinicians are involved. In any reform and change, there must be balance.

It is time for this Labour Government to take action. What successive Governments have allowed to unfold in maternity care tells a devastating story about how little the lives and experience of women are valued. Those of us who were made to feel completely expendable at the most vulnerable moment in our life will know that to be only too true. In choosing how to respond, this Government have a powerful opportunity to send a decisive message about how they view and value women.

This Baby Loss Awareness Week, we honour those children who are loved and missed, and we recognise the parents, siblings, families and friends who carry their memories every day. Today, I want to emphasise just how vital it is that we see the quality of bereavement care standardised, and that this standard is mandated for every NHS trust and health board.

My constituents John and Holly Osman live in Wells with their two lively children, six-year-old twins named Alex and Amelia. It may surprise some of my constituents that I speak about John, as we do not share a political perspective. However, we share a life experience with each other, many of my constituents and, I understand, one in every two people in this country: the terrible loss of a pregnancy or the death of a baby. That experience transcends all political differences.

Some eight years ago, John and Holly lost their much loved twins, Logan and Lottie, five months into their pregnancy. Logan and Lottie’s lives were short. Logan was with them for 15 minutes and Lottie for 57 minutes. Holly, who is in the Gallery this evening, tells me that registering their births and deaths will remain one of the hardest things they have ever had to do.

John and Holly were lucky to receive excellent bereavement care from the team at the Royal United hospital at Bath, which in 2017 and 2018 was piloting the national bereavement care pathway. Being able to deliver in the forget me not suite, where they receive care from trained bereavement midwives and spent two days with their babies making memories, is something they say they probably did not realise how much they needed then, but that they cherish deeply now.

As Holly highlights, the power of compassionate, skilled bereavement care cannot be overstated. It helps parents begin to process trauma, to create memories and to honour a life, however short. That care does not erase loss, but it brings dignity, acknowledgement and a foundation for healing. The care that parents receive in those heartbreaking moments stays with them forever. No one can turn back the clock, but we can make a difference through having compassion, understanding and better care.

I welcome this important debate, and I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) and for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae), and the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt), for bringing to the House, during Baby Loss Awareness Week, this debate on a grief that touches thousands, who often grieve in silence.

I will use this debate to call for a UK-wide perinatal death reduction programme, and will talk about foetal growth restriction monitoring. I am really glad that the Secretary of State for Health is in the Chamber; that shows his commitment. This debate is well timed to inform the rapid review of maternity and neonatal safety in England.

For many, baby loss is invisible and misunderstood. This week breaks that silence, honours lives cut short and stands with families who carry their babies’ memory every day. Like other Members, I pay tribute to charities like Sands, Tommy’s and the Miscarriage Association. Their work must be supported and recognised.

I speak with a heavy heart to share the story of Maia Devlin Corfield, a beautiful baby girl who should be here today. Her parents Sherena and Jack came to my advice surgery to tell me about Maia’s stillbirth at Kingston hospital. Though Sherena’s pregnancy was low risk, Maia showed signs of growth restriction. Staff reassured Sherena but failed to act. Maia was born still on 29 November 2024. The autopsy showed she was healthy, but died due to a placental condition that halted her growth and breathing.

Babies with growth issues like Maia are eight times more likely to die, and it was Kingston’s foetal growth monitoring system that failed her. It diverged from national standards and, despite early warnings, many unsafe practices like that remain. The Government’s own maternity and neonatal safety investigation into Maia’s death made nine recommendations, yet risks still persist and are not listened to. Sherena and Jack often feel that they are not being listened to, but bereaved parents need to be heard because by listening to them, we can identify those areas that need to change. It is that culture and the regulation and standards that all need to work together to see real change.

I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) and for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) both for bringing this debate during Baby Loss Awareness Week and the incredibly thoughtful and moving contributions they have already made to the House. I suspect we will see this House at its best this evening, debating in a measured but passionate way something of huge importance to so many of our constituents.

I welcome to the Public Gallery those family members who have stayed until this late hour because this matters so much to them. I pay tribute to Bliss, Sands and other charities that do so much in this space. It has been a privilege for me to meet, and read correspondence from, constituents of mine who have been affected by baby loss. I have to say, they have carried themselves with the most incredible dignity given what they have been through. I am very conscious that it is something that they will never get over.

I will not use surnames as I have not sought permission, but some families have given me the name of the baby they lost, and I want to place those names on the record, because it matters: baby Wynter, baby Harry and baby Ciara-Mae. I know that they will always be their parents’ baby. It is important that we remember that. I hope to do them justice.

The hon. Member for Sherwood Forest spoke with incredible eloquence when she said that it is about not just mourning the past but fighting for the future. She sums up what this debate must be about if it is about anything. We have seen progress, but it is sadly not enough. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash mentioned, that progress has apparently plateaued since the pandemic. We still see terrible inequality of outcomes across different groups in our society.

Sadly, giving birth is not risk-free, but by no means are all those baby losses inevitable—many are avoidable. We need to ensure that we do all we can to reduce that risk. When something goes wrong, as sadly it has on too many occasions, families deserve transparency, openness and a fight for improvement. They need to be believed and listened to. We have seen problems in Morecambe Bay, Telford, East Kent, Nottingham—I could go on. Let me focus briefly on Nottingham—as a Leicestershire MP, many of my constituents will have been affected. Donna Ockenden’s work is very welcome; she has built extraordinary trust with the families and those who have been failed. I also welcome the national review that the Secretary of State has put in place, and the work being done by the noble Baroness Amos. I know that the Secretary of State knows this, but I gently say to him that there are different views among the families, and I encourage him and the review team to continue taking the families with them, to work with them at each stage, and to listen to them.