A mother has shared a picture of her stillborn baby to eliminate what she calls the ‘stigma’ over the issue – and help others who have suffered the same tragedy.
Mary Vince also reveals how she was shunned by ‘close friends’ after the loss of her baby just a week before her due date.
The 37-year-old was battling fertility problems and thought she’d beaten the odds when she fell pregnant naturally with her first child.
Her joy was however short lived when a scan revealed that her baby’s heart had stopped at 38 weeks.
To make matters worse, when she needed comfort after losing the boy, says people she expected to be there for her failed to come to visit.
She is now campaigning for all babies who are stillborn to be issued a birth certificate – she says that to not to do so is ‘de-humanising’ for children like her son, she says. Mary still can’t bear to scatter her first born’s ashes. She said:
‘After Johnny I lost some friends, who I thought were close to me, because they didn’t want to come and see me. They didn’t know how to react.And that’s heartbreaking. The one thing I wanted to do more than anything was talk about Johnny because I was so proud to have had him. He was a beautiful little boy.I don’t want a fuss, I just want to talk about him like the human being that he was – his gorgeous little hands, and his gorgeous little face, and his nose, and his toes, and all the rest of him.Some people just couldn’t understand, and I had to keep saying, “Just talk to me – talk to me about him”. Yes, I might cry, but it’s tinged with happiness because I’m talking about my special little boy.We had Johnny cremated but I can’t bear to scatter his ashes yet,‘ she explains. He’s upstairs in our bedroom with us. We also didn’t even get a proper birth certificate – just a death certificate.But Johnny did exist, he came into this world, I gave birth to him. I’d call for a change to the system where families like me get a death and a birth certificate in one.’
As Johnny was born breathing or showing any other signs of life, UK law requires he is issued with a Certificate of Registration of Stillbirth.