"Stillbirths in a maternity unit "

I attended this hospital as a grandmother who's son and daughter in law's baby had died at full term in the womb. We went to the hospital so that the baby could be delivered naturally as the safest option for the mother. Horrendous in itself.

As a grieving family this process stretched over 4 days. During this time we could not freely access the maternity facilities. This was because of security doors between the unit and waiting room. Everytime I wanted to see my son and daughter in law I had to either find a member of staff which wasn't easy or wait for someone to let me in, which could take 5 minutes. This process happened both ways and must have been at least 15 times during the day and was experienced by all the close members of their family. The waiting room where we were based had no basic facilities such as drinking water since this was sourced on the other side of the security doors. We spent 4 days staring at posters of new born babies, pregnancy advice and advice on after care. My daughter in law saw these whilst in labour to a dead child and got hysterical. This meant she couldn't come out of her room and visit us in the waiting room because it was too distressing. We were allowed to go in the room next to the delivery room where they were, but this was only after the birth when we were suffering significant visual distress.

To avoid the stress of waiting around to go in and out of the maternity unit , we would often just stand around in the corridor outside my sons delivery room, hearing newborn babies cry and mothers in labour.

We will never forget our experience at this hospital as a grieving family. The staff were wonderful and mostly went far beyond their call of duty to care and support us . But the messages we got from the insensitive organisation and infrastructure was this... You dont count, you're not important. This unit is all about life not death. What happened to you doesn't happen very often so hard luck. It's not about money here it's about provision for families of stillborn babies. This was incredibly lacking , insensitive and downright hurtful. Rather than alleviating our grief it compounded it. We have moved on in this area of care, but simply keeping the baby with the parents afterwards and giving the mother more choices isn't enough to give yourselves a pat on the back. You added unnecessary stress and unpleasant experiences to our loss. I would be filled with dread if I had to go back again. God forbid. Get your act together for the sake of yes - the small number of stillbirths. Our trauma not happiness will stay with us for the rest of our lives. Your duty is to alleviate it if you can, not turn a blind eye and say 'Oh well it doesn't happen very often anyway.'