Baby Loss Awareness Week takes place each year from 9 – 15 October.
It began 21 years ago in October 2002 as a one-day event remembering babies who had died too soon and was inspired by Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day in the USA.
In the last 21 years, Baby Loss Awareness Week has grown to be a weeklong event with support from an alliance of over 100 baby loss charities. Events such as buildings around the country lighting up pink and blue in support. Thousands of fundraising events take place throughout the week and many parents and families share their baby’s story bringing awareness, insight and understanding to what life is like after the loss of a much-loved baby.
But why is Baby Loss Awareness Week so important?
Bereaved parents and families have not always been able to talk about their baby and the grief of their loss so openly.
Baby loss has been a taboo subject for many years. Grieving parents are still being told to go home and forget about their baby, have another baby and move on.
In many parts of the world, it is not socially acceptable to grieve openly for fear of making others feel uncomfortable.
But thanks to events like Baby Loss Awareness Week, attitudes and hearts are softening. More and more people are aware of the grief and emotions that surround baby loss. There is a greater understanding and acceptance that grief is lifelong and that bereaved parents can never forget and will always remember their precious child.
Baby loss affects 1 in 4 couples
Baby loss affects 1 in 4 couples, that’s parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews. Nearly everyone will know someone who has lost a child either through miscarriage, TFMR, stillbirth or neonatal death.
1 in 4 will know the utter heartbreaking despair of losing their baby. 1 in 4 will have arms that physically ache to hold their child again, and 1 in 4 will have this exciting new chapter in their lives stop so suddenly and tragically that they wonder if they will ever recover.
This is why Baby Loss Awareness Week is so important, it is about remembrance, raising awareness and driving change.
Remembering all the sweet souls who couldn’t stay but whose little feet have left a huge imprint in our hearts.
Raising Awareness
Raising Awareness so that people know what services they can access and get the right support and help if they need it.
Driving change so that bereaved parents are treated with dignity and respect, that they never have to hear the words ‘its ok you can just have another one!’. Driving change in policies and practices. And driving change in attitudes to the loss of a much-loved child.
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For more information on Baby Loss Awareness Week visit the BLAW website
https://babyloss-awareness.org
The World Health Organisation has an article on its website titled,
‘Why we need to talk about losing a baby’.
https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/why-we-need-to-talk-about-losing-a-baby
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