BLAW Overview 9-15 October 2024
By Footprints | 17/10/2024
6 min readThis year marked the 22nd year of Baby Loss Awareness Week – a week for us all to come together to remember and commemorate our much-loved and missed babies.
Footprints Baby Loss, members of the Baby Loss Awareness Week Alliance, participated in events throughout the week.
We came together with all of the other baby loss charities to remember our babies and raise awareness of pregnancy and baby loss and provide support to anyone affected by pregnancy loss and the death of a baby.
The week finished with the global “Wave of Light” on 15th October.
Everyone was invited to join other families across the world by lighting a candle at 7 pm local time, leaving it burning for at least one hour to remember all babies that have died too soon.
Footprints Events
We began a week before BLAW with a ‘Be Together’ event that we hosted with Aching Arms for surviving twins and triplets and siblings with Footprints and Aching Arms families. It was a lovely day spent together at Bekonscot Model village.
https://footprintsbabyloss.org/get-involved/
It was then time for our first ever Footprints Remembering Day where we were joined by around 50 people in Reading. It was a really special and meaningful day, a lovely way to honour the memory of all our babies… those of the families that were there but also those that couldn’t make it to the event.
https://footprintsbabyloss.org/support/footprints-remembering-day/
We held two well attended Online Group Drop in sessions during the week, one for families with a surviving twin or triplet/s, and one for families who have lost both twins or triplets. It was nice to come together during the week as we know that it can often feel like a heavy week for many of our families. We got to talk about our babies with each other and any feelings around BLAW.
Suzie and Sharon went along to the BBC Berkshire Radio studios to record an interview with Kirsten O’Brien, which was aired on Wed 9th Oct at the start of Baby Loss Awareness Week at 10am. The full interview was played on the 9th, and then the first half again on the 10th. A huge thank you to Kirsten O’Brien and the BBC Berkshire Radio team for inviting Sharon and Suzie to the studios to chat about how things have been going for Footprints since Kirsten interviewed them back in January on launch day.
•Website news
https://footprintsbabyloss.org/resources/news/footprints-in-the-news-for-blaw/
•YouTube channel
https://youtu.be/RJNndc2ZC48?si=5stHU6xJyvgYVkGy
Suzie, Sharon and a number of our Footprints volunteers – Faye, Owen, Jay, Laura, Jodie and Myriam recorded interviews with Greatest Hits Radio which were played out all week locally and a few times nationally. Thank you so much for all the support and for everyone else who also offered. We have had a lot of new people reaching out this week.
Articles from Greatest Hits Radio
Laura
https://hellorayo.co.uk/greatest-hits/harrogate-yorkshire-dales/news/baby-loss-north-yorkshire-mum-calls-for-more-family-wide-support/
Myriam
https://hellorayo.co.uk/greatest-hits/essex/news/baby-loss-certificates-extended/
Jay
https://hellorayo.co.uk/hits-radio/staffordshire/news/staffordshire-mum-baby-loss-certificates/
Jodie
https://hellorayo.co.uk/greatest-hits/yorkshire-coast/news/north-yorkshire-baby-loss/
Video Clips
Sharon and Suzie
https://youtu.be/Rr73ZfB6wbc?si=1yHvtE-qkerD0NQZ
Jodie
https://youtu.be/4JYKw7tEb5I?si=yaG2VR6OJyl0Ndva
At the start of BLAW we introduced Catherine and shared her video where she reads her letter to her future self. We shared short clips of her video each day where she shared important parts of her journey. We are so grateful to Catherine for sharing Louis with us and talking about having triplets.
Website
http://footprintsbabyloss.org/home/#catherine
YouTube channel
https://youtu.be/uMg7jXBpHGY?si=R6WqCyOon9W-YpZ7
Abigail’s Footsteps podcast – Sharon and Suzie recorded a podcast with Abigail’s Footsteps which was shared at the start of BLAW.
https://www.abigailsfootsteps.co.uk/a_journey_with_abigails_podcasts/
“Series 2. Episode 2 – Navigating twin and triplet loss
This episode discusses twin and triplet loss. We hear from Emily Cooke who had a twin loss and Abigail’s Bereavement Counsellor, Jenny Bradshaw. Sharon Darke and Suzie Scofield talk about their experience of loss and what led them to setting up their own charity, ‘Footprints baby loss charity’.”
Kate Polley from Loss Books shared her experience of losing Sam and having her surviving twin Finn with us and talked about the importance of peer to peer support and finding people who understand. We shared it on our social media platforms.
We made personalised profile photos for around 80 of our families which we saw across social media during BLAW.
Sharon wrote an article for The Metro newspaper which was shared online on Sat 12th October to coincide with the start of BLAW.
https://metro.co.uk/2024/10/12/registered-babies-deaths-sat-next-joyful-new-mums
We have had lots of emails and enquiries following Baby Loss Awareness Week which was really why we wanted to do all of these things. We want people to always be able to find us and access our support.
Sharon was the guest speaker at the Coventry Cathedral BLAW Remembrance Service.
“It was such a lovely afternoon remembering our twins and triplets at the Coventry Cathedral Baby Loss Awareness Week Remembrance service on Sunday 13th October. It was especially great to see some of our Footprints families there. It’s such a beautiful
venue and it was full with families who have experienced baby loss.”
https://footprintsbabyloss.org/resources/news/coventry-cathedral-blaw-event/
We have shared other posts across all of our social media about our support, our amazing volunteers, suggestions of things to say and what not to say, World Mental Health Day and self-care, Baby Loss Certificates update as well.
Our Wave of Light Live was a beautiful way to end Baby Loss Awareness Week. Sharon was privileged to read out almost 200 of our babies names as the candle flickered. She shared a beautiful poem ‘Footprints’ and left the candle burning for an hour, creating a wave of light across the world. It was so beautiful to see so many candle photos shared afterwards. What a special week we have had together. 👣👣
