Stillbirth: A Pain Left Unspoken

Emma Johnston was overjoyed to find herself pregnant for the first time at 37 years old, after four years of trying. She and husband Nick had planned a natural birth at their home in Poole. "I was comfortable and relaxed throughout labour," she recalls now. "Then everything changed. The midwife couldn't find the heartbeat. Our world fell apart." Daisy was born after a transfer to hospital on 21 February 2011. There was no first cry for Emma – "just a quiet, lifeless body put on my chest."

Every day 17 babies die, either stillborn or under 28 days old, according to Sands, a charity that provides support for bereaved parents. The recent stillbirth of Gary Barlow's daughter Poppy led to an outpouring of condolences online, but many of us struggle to know how to help when a friend or relative's baby dies.

Following a post-mortem, the Johnstons discovered that a malfunctioning placenta caused their healthy daughter's death. Other common factors include infection, haemorrhage, diabetes and genetic defects. However, as Erica Stewart, support manager at Sands, explains, many parents will never know why their baby died. "For over half of all stillbirths the cause remains unexplained. We need to understand what is causing these deaths."

Despite the UK's high stillbirth rate (ranked 33rd worst out of 35 economically comparable countries by the Lancet in 2011), this remains an issue that, it seems, we are reluctant to face. "It's a taboo," says Emma. "Nobody talks about it. I hadn't even heard the word stillbirth uttered until it happened to me."

Sue Macdonald, education and research manager at the Royal College of Midwives agrees. "I let bereaved parents know that friends and family may stop talking to them or even cross the road to avoid them."