Latest news with #infantloss
SBS Australia
23-05-2025
- General
- SBS Australia
No death certificate, no funeral: Why some families can't find their deceased children
Before the 1980s, babies who had been stillborn or died soon after birth were often buried in unmarked graves in locations unknown to their families, adding to the trauma and loss felt by generations of bereaved mothers. Source: SBS News When a woman knocked on Geoffrey Horlock's door and told him that her baby brother had been buried in the same grave plot as his own brother, he was more than a little surprised. "I was not sure what to say at first," Horlock says. His brother Andrew had been stillborn in 1960. Horlock was around nine at the time. He recalls his mother telling him about how his brother was taken out of the delivery room in a white sheet and buried in the local cemetery while she was still recovering in hospital. This is how infant loss was often dealt with in the 1960s. "Mum never got over it," Horlock says. Right until the day she died, she always used to say: 'I wonder which side of the family he looked like.' The family was issued a birth certificate and told about the burial site. But this was not always the case. For the Harding family, whose baby died less than three weeks after the Horlocks' in the same regional Western Australian town, no birth certificate was issued. Unlike baby Horlock, baby Harding was live-born but arrived prematurely and tragically did not survive. Unbeknownst to both families, he was buried alongside baby Horlock in the lower part of his grave plot in August 1960. It wasn't until baby Harding's older sister, Susan Mead, showed up on Geoffrey Horlock's doorstep some 65 years later that the connection was finally made. She had come to ask whether she could place a marking on the grave to recognise her brother. Horlock says once the initial shock passed, he realised there was only one answer. Mead lives on a property in the south-west of WA, about 65km east of the small town of Bridgetown where her mother gave birth to baby Harding. Mead and her siblings had spent decades hoping to find their baby brother's resting place. But without formal documentation, such as a birth or death certificate, their efforts to find him were continually stymied. Finally, in March, they reached a turning point. Mead's sister-in-law spotted a Facebook post from the Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes, about records for the nearby Bridgetown Cemetery having been uploaded to its website. Looking over the shire's list of people buried there, Mead came across a mention of a 'Baby Harding'. That name had not been included in previous searchable listings for the cemetery. It identified the exact location of the grave, too, but when family members went to visit, they found a gravestone for baby Horlock instead. Confused, the family contacted Bridgetown-Greenbushes Shire, which manages the cemetery. They confirmed that baby Harding is also buried in the plot, which, according to records, had been divided in two — a practice that the local government has since ceased. In a statement to SBS News, a spokesperson for the shire acknowledged the challenges with historical burial records for stillbirths and neonatal deaths, noting it is "currently completing an audit and correlation of hardcopy documents, current headstones and electronic records" to ensure it has a fully digitised and accurate record of all listings. The spokesperson says the shire is aware of one other case in which two unrelated babies were buried in the same plot, dating back to 1954. In that case, two stillborn babies were buried in the same plot eight weeks apart, despite records showing it was not listed as a 'half plot'. "The Shire is committed to ensuring this information is researched and updated so that descendant family members can search for and locate loved ones," the spokesperson says. Many families who lost babies as a result of stillbirth or neonatal death before the 1980s in Australia remain in the dark about their loved one's final resting place. Joan Noonan is a volunteer co-leader with a group set up by Red Nose Australia, which seeks to prevent the sudden and unexpected death of babies and young children and gives bereavement support for those affected by death of a baby or young child. Its 'Older Loss Group' supports mothers who are still processing the grief of stillbirth years after losing a child. One of the key aims of the group, which is based in Victoria, is to help families in tracking down burial sites. Noonan says many families search for the final resting place of their stillborn family members in the hope of finding some peace. The 78-year-old became part of the Older Loss Group about 30 years ago, having lost two infant daughters of her own in the 1970s. "In most cases, you weren't given a chance to have a funeral," she says. "The hospital staff would say they were 'looking after these babies', and the hospital would arrange burial and families weren't even told where they were buried." Noonan says at that time, it was not the "done thing" to question the process. Stillbirth was treated as taboo. Nobody talked about the death of a baby. "In the majority of cases, they were buried in communal graves, they often waited for about 10 babies at a time and there's some places in Melbourne where there's hundreds of babies buried in mass graves." Noonan's volunteer co-lead, Fotini Koklas, says given most babies they have located via the Older Loss Group are in mass graves, the situation involving the Hardings and the Horlocks appears to be "extremely rare". Koklas has come across one similar case in which a baby was buried in a grave with an unrelated adult, with no clear explanation as to why this happened. "It's possible that it was a space issue, or perhaps the cemetery simply didn't know where to place the baby," she says. Until this year, baby Harding's name would have only have been traceable via handwritten records stored in a very specific location by the Bridgetown-Greenbushes shire. Koklas says because of state-based variations in laws, record systems and how stillbirths are handled, it can be incredibly challenging for families to track down accurate information. "Every cemetery is different, and the level of detail they have in their historical records varies greatly," she says. Historically, different stakeholders that may have details that could help families were very siloed from one another. "There's often a breakdown in communication between cemeteries, stonemasons, and families, in some cases, critical details aren't shared — either because of incomplete records or administrative oversights." Koklas says the passage of time complicates the process further. "Over the decades, cemetery management has often changed hands, record-keeping systems have evolved, and unfortunately, some older records have been lost, damaged, or simply never kept in the first place — especially for babies born before the 1980s." Inaccurate and inconsistent historical records present an added hurdle for those searching for answers. Koklas explains that naming stillborn babies was subject to variation: they could be recorded with their mother's maiden name or married name, or referred to as names such as: "Baby Smith," "Stillborn Smith," or "Baby of Kate Smith". "While families can sometimes search online for burial records, the transition from handwritten paper records to digital systems has introduced a number of issues," she says. "Dates are often misrecorded due to difficulties in reading old handwriting. "In one case, a baby who passed away in April 1966 was entered into the system as April 1968." Noonan says despite such challenges, it's often still possible to piece information together by cross-referencing available records, contacting multiple sources and a bit of compassionate persistence. "We've developed some records now that show in Victoria what hospitals used what undertakers and then what cemeteries they used and things like that," she says. In years gone by, a birth may not have even been considered a birth if the baby was stillborn, so no birth or death certificate was issued. This also meant that protocols around burial fell outside of legal requirements. The statutory instruments and registration practices related to births and perinatal deaths — which include stillbirths and neonatal deaths — have varied between Australian states and territories over the years. For example, in Queensland and Victoria, legislation around the registration of stillbirths came into place in 1989, while in NSW it was a 1995 Act that recognised stillbirth as a birth and therefore required formal registration. Associate professor Fran Boyle from the University of Queensland's Institute for Social Science Research and Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence says it was not until the mid-1980s that social attitudes toward perinatal deaths began to change. "This was largely due to the voices of bereaved parents," she explains. Parent advocacy groups under the banner of Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society (SANDS) — now part of Red Nose — were formed. "One of their many important achievements was the successful campaign for government to recognise stillborn babies through birth and death certificates," Boyle says. Today, across Australia, a stillborn baby at 20 weeks gestation or more is required to be registered, in most states and territories that will warrant a birth certificate, noting stillbirth. Boyle says burial practices tend to reflect the "prevailing social norm" of the time, and before the 80s "the loss of a baby was something to be forgotten". "[It was] not something to be discussed or memorialised." Boyle says such sentiment informed the practice of withholding stillborn babies from their mothers. Many were never given the chance to look at or hold their children. "The widely held view was that parents needed to be protected, that seeing their baby, having contact with their baby, creating memories of any kind would be harmful, and intensify and prolong their grief," Boyle says. Horlock still remembers his mother returning from hospital after giving birth without his baby brother. He says she spent days sitting by the wood fire stove in their kitchen, just staring at the fire. "Mum was distressed about it and it troubled her her whole life," he says. Much has changed since laws recognising the births of stillborn babies were strengthened. The national Care Around Stillbirth and Neonatal Death guidelines, updated in 2024, cover best practice for stillbirth and recommend offering all parents the opportunity to see and hold their baby immediately after birth and allowing them to interact with their baby through activities such as bathing and dressing them. Koklas has seen the benefit of these changes firsthand. As well as being involved in helping to find baby graves, she is a bereaved mum. Her two baby boys died in 2011 and 2016. "I am so grateful I got to hold my babies, name them and make funeral arrangements for them," she says. For those who lost children in decades gone by, the hope of finding their graves remains. Koklas says every family she has supported to locate their baby has shared a similar feeling: a deep sense of peace and closure. "Finding a baby's final resting place is one of the most healing and powerful experiences … it's something that goes beyond words, like a heavy weight being lifted. It doesn't mean they've 'moved on' — because grief doesn't work that way — but they feel like they can now live again, just a little bit lighter. Similarly, Noonan attests to the importance of finding burial sites. She says while the Older Loss Group has helped to locate hundreds of babies, there are still so many more Australian families out there wishing they knew where their babies were. She encourages anyone needing help in their search to reach out, saying: "it's never too late". An investigation of historical practices associated with stillborn babies and perinatal infant loss in Australia before the 1980s has never been undertaken. The federal attorney-general's department did not respond to questions put by SBS News about whether the government plans to conduct a national investigation or apology into the matter. At least for Mead and the Harding siblings, there is some long-awaited closure — and the chance to place a commemorative plaque on the plot their baby brother shares with baby Horlock. Geoffrey Horlock says he and his siblings decided to place a headstone on the grave a number of years ago after both their parents had died as a way to honour their mother. He says his mother would have loved for that to have happened in her lifetime. "That finished it for us; it put some closure on Andrew. So if there's another baby buried there, it'd only be fair that we let them do that too."
BBC News
20-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Bangor: Four-day-old baby died following 'gross medical failures'
A four-day-old baby died following "a gross failure to provide basic medical care" immediately before and during her birth, an inquest has concluded.A post-mortem examination confirmed Etta Lili Stockwell-Parry suffered oxygen starvation during her birth at Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor in July 2023 - which lead to brain inquest found that midwives failed to spot warnings Etta's growth had become static on more than one occasion and she would "likely have survived" if she had been recognised as a high-risk coroner described it as "one of the most troubling cases" she had ever dealt with. The hearing in Caernarfon heard Etta's growth measurements had become static when full-term pregnancy was reached - indicating growth of the baby had stopped, a condition known as foetal growth mother, Laura Stockwell-Parry, told the inquest in a statement her daughter was "grey-coloured, limp and lifeless" at birth."I felt completely helpless and had no idea what was going on," she said. "Our beautiful little girl was on a ventilator with lots of tubes."Mrs Stockwell-Parry and her husband, Tristan, were told their daughter was having seizures, and would be transferred to a specialist unit at Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral, north west condition continued to deteriorate, with seizures becoming "uncontrollable" the court heard, so a decision was taken to stop treatment."We knew that she would not be able to survive," said Mrs Stockwell-Parry, adding "she passed away peacefully in my arms". Community midwife Kiera Fitzgerald, who was caring for Mrs Stockwell-Parry at home, admitted she failed to recognise the baby's growth had stalled."I'm really sorry, I misjudged that," she Fitzgerald said the mother should have been referred for a scan on the baby but she was instead booked into hospital to have an induced inquest heard the foetal growth issue was not spotted by at least two other midwives when Mrs Stockwell-Parry was admitted to the maternity Catrin Roberts said if she had spotted the growth charts, her approach would have been different."We thought she was a low risk. Static growth would make her a high risk," she said. Errors were also made monitoring the unborn child's heart rate on the labour ward, with the mother's pulse being recorded rather than the infant' Kate Robertson told Etta's parents she would be writing to Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board to express her concern at the investigation that had taken place into Etta's death."There has not been enough sharing of information, and I am not satisfied that all the findings of the investigation will be dissipated downwards to staff", she Cadwaladr University Health Board has been approached for comment.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Palestine family donates infant preservation device to hospital
PALESTINE, Texas (KETK) — A Palestine family, who lost their infant daughter last year, donated their infant preservation device to a local hospital so other families could spend more time with their recently deceased babies. Tyler research firm awarded $278 million in Samsung patent lawsuit Last year, the Pierce family went through the unthinkable when they lost their infant daughter to a rare neural tube defect. 'Skipper Kate was diagnosed with a rare and fatal neural tube defect, called anencephaly,' Sayler Pierce said. While nothing could sooth their pain, all they wanted was another moment with Skipper Kate. The moment may not have been the way they imagined it, but the family was able to use a Cuddle Cot to make it happen. 'This device gave us the gift of time,' Pierce said. 'It keeps them cold. And by keeping them cold, it allows families to get time they otherwise would not have gotten without the aid of this cooling device.' Lake Striker Boat Race returns to Reklaw this weekend Now Sayler and Noah Pierce are giving the same gift to other families by donating the device to Palestine Regional Medical Center. 'We knew one way that we wanted to honor her life was with a Cuddle Cot donation to each hospital,' Sayler said. 'It's an honor of both our daughter, Skipper Kate, as well as her Aunt Savannah, who passed away on December 28, 1996.' The hospital said they could not afford the device, but the Pierce family's donation allows the hospital to offer this service to other families. 'This is just an unbelievable blessing because it's something we probably would not have been able to do with our own facility,' maternal child health director, Melissa Jones said. Families dealing with a tragedy will now have the gift of extended time. 'This just kind of helps that process,' Jones said. 'It gives them time to just be able to bond and be with the family and experience the loss together.' Lufkin honors fallen officers at memorial service ceremony This device may not be the last donation the family intends to give. 'Our goal is to spread Cuddle Cots around to give at least 1 to 2 devices to each hospital so that those families walking through that season will have the gift of time,' Pierce said. Through their donations, the family hopes Skipper Kate's memory will live on. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CBS News
13-05-2025
- Automotive
- CBS News
Pregnant woman injured in Bloomfield Township crash, her premature baby later died
Repairs to Belle Isle fountain; financial impact of tariffs; and more top stories Repairs to Belle Isle fountain; financial impact of tariffs; and more top stories Repairs to Belle Isle fountain; financial impact of tariffs; and more top stories A pregnant woman was among those seriously injured, and her prematurely born infant has since died, as a result of a traffic crash Saturday in Oakland County, Michigan. The Bloomfield Township Police Department is investigating the crash and asking for the public's help with information. The two-vehicle crash happened about 1:30 p.m. Saturday near the IHOP restaurant on South Telegraph Road. A white Honda Accord was eastbound from a median turn-around when it was broadsided by a northbound black Jeep Grand Cherokee, police said. Witnesses told police that the driver of the Grand Cherokee ran the red traffic signal at the median crossing. Three people were in the Accord, including a passenger who was 23 weeks pregnant. She was extricated from the car and had an emergency delivery that afternoon. The infant died Sunday, the day after the crash. A child who was in a child car seat in the Accord was secured in a car seat and had minor injuries. The drivers of both vehicles were also injured and taken to local hospitals for treatment. The South Oakland County Crash Investigation Team is assisting with the investigation. Police ask that anyone who witnessed the crash or has information about the incident contact the Bloomfield Township Police Department at 248-433-7755.
The Independent
07-05-2025
- The Independent
Parents sue for $20 million after son's remains found in crematorium when they thought he was cremated
Parents who received what they thought were the ashes of their infant son are now suing a funeral home and crematorium after his decomposing remains were found. The Washington, D.C. area couple, Chris Parham and Laquanda Brown, were still in the process of mourning their two-month-old when police contacted them with disturbing news; their son's body had been found decaying at the Heaven Bound Crematorium in White Plains, Maryland. The child was reportedly still wearing the clothes he was dressed in for the funeral, Fox 5 DC reports. Now, the parents are suing the crematorium and Stewart Funeral Home for $10 million each. This isn't the first time the crematorium has been accused of mishandling the recently deceased. In 2017, the Maryland Death Services Oversight Board found evidence suggesting the funeral home hadn't been properly storing its human remains. State investigators found human bodies being stored in cardboard boxes and stacked like cargo. Arms and legs were reportedly hanging out of body bags, and various fluids — including blood — were leaking onto the floor. The business was shut down in January of this year following the discovery. CJ Greenidge, who used the company to handle her father's remains just before the state's discovery, called the proprietors "evil." "The people that were in charge of running Heaven Bound were evil. I think they took advantage of people at their worst and most vulnerable point," she told WMAR News in January. "It causes real damage. It's a lot to deal with losing someone that you love and to know that as soon as they left this house, you don't know what could have happened." Governor Wes Moore has opened an investigation into the state's oversight board to determine why the business was allowed to continue despite numerous red flags. Parham and Brown did not even know their child wase going to be sent to Heaven Bound by Steward Funeral Home in D.C. The couple told Fox 5 that they felt lied to and that they still have not received their son's remains, despite receiving a set of ashes. Both Heaven Bound and Stewart Funeral Home — as well as their owners, Rosa Turner and Brandon Williams, respectively — are named in the parents' lawsuit. The filing claims that the businesses inflicted severe emotional distress on the grieving parents.
