Parents launch campaign to save babies’ lives across Wales
Bereaved parents from across Wales have launched a petition calling on the next Welsh Government to set clear targets to reduce baby deaths and improve bereavement care for families affected by pregnancy and baby loss.
The campaign, supported by Sands, the UK’s leading pregnancy and baby loss charity, was launched during Baby Loss Awareness Week (9–15 October). It urges political parties in Wales to make saving babies’ lives a central part of their manifestos ahead of the next Senedd election.
Ruth Mason, one of seven bereaved parents leading the petition, lost her twin boys, George and Henry, who were stillborn in 2018.
Ruth said: “Every day across Wales, there are mothers leaving hospitals without their babies. Families, like mine and many others, face the devastation of a life so different to the one they had planned. This is more likely to happen to a woman in Wales than in any other UK nation. I believe that we deserve better.
“For far too long, our maternity care in Wales has been in crisis, with frontline staff pushed to their limits and families not listened to. We refuse to allow the wall of silence and excuses to stay upright any longer.”
Wales continues to have a higher stillbirth rate than the rest of the UK, with limited progress in reducing neonatal deaths. England, which introduced national targets in 2015 to halve stillbirth and neonatal deaths by 2025, has seen improvement. Sands estimates that if Wales had matched the best-performing countries in Europe between 2019 and 2023, more than 1,000 babies might have survived.
Sands’ Chief Executive, Clea Harmer, said: “Wales can and must do more to save more babies’ lives and ensure that every bereaved family receives high-quality care and support. As candidates from all parties begin their campaigns for election to the Senedd, people touched by pregnancy and baby loss in Wales need to know that their future political representatives are committed to making the changes they want to see to maternity services.”
The Sands and Tommy’s Joint Policy Unit has proposed new UK-wide targets to be met by 2035. Sands is calling for the Welsh Government to commit to:
- A stillbirth rate of 2.0 per 1,000 total births
- A neonatal mortality rate of 0.5 per 1,000 live births (for babies born at 24 weeks and over)
- The elimination of inequalities in outcomes based on ethnicity and deprivation
The petition also calls for the next Welsh Government to support the rollout of a National Bereavement Care Pathway across all Health Boards, and to expand access to specialist psychological support, currently limited to Cardiff and Vale.
Sands is encouraging everyone in Wales, whether or not they have been affected by pregnancy or baby loss, to sign the petition and share it to help raise awareness.
More information, and the petition in Welsh and English, is available on Sands’ website.
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