Baby Loss Awareness Week — House of Commons, 2017-10-10
Topic: Health
Robert Alexander Courts (Conservative, Centre-right): May I say how honoured and humbled I am to follow so many hon. Members on both sides of the House who have made moving speeches about their own experiences, and those with very deep professional knowledge, chief among whom are the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson)? May I also thank all the members of the all-party group—we have heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Colchester (Will Quince), for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) and for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach)—whose passion for and commitment to this most important of all causes really shines through, as I am sure everybody on both sides of the House agrees? I thank all those who have spoken today through their own pain, as well as all those constituents who have written to all of us to enable us to raise in the Chamber a cause that matters so much to them. If they did not write and share those very difficult stories, we would not be able to do half as much to help In my brief comments today, I shall give voice to concerns that my constituents have raised, and I want to support all my colleagues, on both sides of the House, who are working so hard to make change, reducing the number of deaths in these most tragic circumstances and providing help to parents when, regrettably, deaths do occur. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury for mentioning my little boy Henry. I am experiencing the joy of being a new father. I can only imagine the trauma that any parent would feel, having lost someone in those circumstances. There is no doubt that a greater trauma for a parent could not be imagined I shall take a brief look at the statistics. As has been said, this is a very human subject—not one for pie charts or statistics—but I think we ought to look at them, if only to consider how far we have to go, and how much more space we need to cover to get close to a situation where stillbirths, and births in labour and shortly afterwards, are reduced to the lowest possible level. One in four pregnancies will end in miscarriage; 200,000 mothers and their families are affected every year; 3,245 stillbirths were recorded in 2014 by MBRRACE-UK. In 46% of stillbirths, the causes are unknown. That is a horrifyingly high statistic, and it is vital that we continue—I am grateful for the Government’s efforts in this respect—to research, so that we can find out the causes of as many conditions as possible. It surely is not something we can be happy about, or be content to tolerate, that the rate of stillbirth in this country is higher than in so many European countries, including Germany, Sweden, Poland and Estonia It is a sad fact that in so many cases, the causes of death are potentially avoidable. Many who have spoken today have far greater experience and knowledge than I have, and I do not pretend to tell the House about those points, but it seems to me that the Government should consider mounting an education campaign so that mothers can, where possible, avoid any risks—the risks, for example, of smoking in pregnancy are well known, and they need to be made clear to everybody—and recognise the signs of an impending problem.