Baby Loss Certificates extended
By Sharon Darke | 09/10/2024
4 min readIt has been announced today at the start of Baby Loss Awareness Week that there will no longer be a backdate for bereaved families to apply for Baby Loss Certificates.
More than 50,000 people have already received certificates since it was announced but this means that many more families that lost babies before 2018 will now be able to apply.
Sharon, Co-Founder and CEO of Footprints Baby Loss Twin & Triplet Support says:
“We are so pleased that there is no longer a backdate to apply for these certificates. This means that many more of the bereaved families that we support will be able to receive a certificate for one or more of their twins and triplets.
We support many families where they have a certificate for one of their babies but not for the other/s in that same multiple pregnancy. It is heartbreaking that many of our families are in this position. It will make a huge difference.”
Suzie Scofield, Co-Founder and COO, and mum to twins Rory and Daniel says:
“One of my non-identical twin boys, Rory, was stillborn at 23+6 weeks gestation… one day short of having a birth (and death) certificate. His twin brother Daniel, unusually was born a few weeks later and although he sadly died too, we received a birth and death certificate for him. I felt Rory move inside me, saw him on all the scans we had, laboured and gave birth to him and held him in my arms after he was born… yet he didn’t qualify for any kind of paperwork… to the official channels he never existed.
It was very hard to have a certificate for one of my twins and not the other.
This is excellent news today about the official baby loss certificates and will enable families to have their precious babies acknowledged as they should always have been. I will definitely be applying for one for Rory, to sit next to Daniel’s, where it belongs.”
One of our families experienced the death of their twins Ethan and Brosie in 1999, and they received a stillbirth certificate for Ethan but nothing at all for Brosie.
Colette says: “My twins died at different gestational ages and because of this on paper there is no record and nothing to say that I had twins. We only got a certificate of stillbirth for Ethan (37 +5) but his brother Brosie was not acknowledged because his gestational age (18 + 4) was too young in the eyes of the law to receive anything – no certificate, no document, nothing to acknowledge him or his very existence.
It was really sad, I carried two, but only one was recognised.
The news of the Baby Loss Certificates having no back date is phenomenal, and I will be applying for one, so my twins will both be acknowledged and will be together again. Families have been waiting for this news and hardly dared to hope that the back date would be removed.”
Sam Collinge who worked tirelessly on the the Pregnancy Review with Zoe Clark-Coates, is one of our medical advisors for the charity.
Samantha Collinge, Bereavement Lead Midwife, George Eliot Hospital
NHS Trust and co-chair of the Pregnancy Loss Review, says:
“The announcement today by the Government of the extension to the pre 24 week baby loss certification scheme for losses prior to September 2018 with no back date is a huge milestone moment not just for Zoe and myself, the co-chairs and co-authors of the ‘Independent Pregnancy Loss Review’ but for the millions of people who have experienced pre-24 weeks baby loss.”
“Since I was appointed as a bereavement midwife in 1998 l have campaigned for a standardised care pathway that ensures that every parent experiencing baby loss, including parents who’ve lost one or more of a set of twins or triplets receives the physical and emotional care and support they deserve. Removing the restrictions around the application process will give all bereaved parents of pre 24 week baby loss the official recognition that their babies did exist and that their babies lives, however brief really do matter.”
You can request a certificate here.
