Baby Loss Awareness Week (9-15 October) is a time for people to come together, raise awareness of pregnancy and baby loss, call for change, and remember our much loved and much-missed babies.
This year’s theme is ‘Together, we care’, which encourages supporters to practise self-care, and to care for each other, in what they say, share, and do, during the week.
There are so many ways that Sands Volunteers support bereaved families to come together for Baby Loss Awareness Week (BLAW).
Angie Halfhide, bereaved mum to Niyah-Rose and volunteer Sands Befriender and Hospital Liaison Volunteer, is chair of the Bournemouth and Poole Sands group.
Niyah-Rose was unexpectedly stillborn at 41 weeks and 5 days at home on 3 August 2021 after an uncomplicated pregnancy and planned homebirth.
For Baby Loss Awareness Week this year, Angie, just like many other Sands Volunteers across the UK, has worked with her group to plan lots of activity to support bereaved parents in the Bournemouth and Poole area.
Group crafting events
Spending time crafting, specially creating something in memory of your baby, can help with anxiety, confidence, and loneliness, and is a great way to practise self-care.
Before Baby Loss Awareness Week, Angie organised for families to come together and craft mementos for their babies and the upcoming Wave of Light.
“We made, amongst other things, decorated jars with battery tealights, decorated pebbles, and made keyrings. We gave out knitted ribbons for families to wear during BLAW or even just to add to a memory box.”
Crocheted ribbons and decorated jars
The group also organised a Charity Variety Show for Friday, 11 October, with some great local talent to give families a bit of respite from the campaign, and to put Baby loss Awareness Week, and Bournemouth and Poole Sands, in the spotlight within the community, so more bereaved families are aware of what they do.
Ribbon Displays
Ribbon Displays are an in-memory display marking Baby Loss Awareness Week.
The displays offer bereaved families the opportunity to include their babies’ name on a ribbon and to have a space where they can come together with other bereaved families to remember their babies.
Bournemouth and Poole Sands have organised multiple Ribbon Displays to be put up for this year’s campaign.
“We have chosen to use various ways represent the gravity of baby loss as well as displaying ribbons with the names of the much loved and much-missed babies within our community.
“We have displays with baby grows, heart garlands and a butterfly tree, and we have some larger ribbons including baby loss statistics and Sands information in local shop windows.
“As a group Baby loss Awareness Week in particular provides the opportunity to push the taboo and challenge the silence that surrounds the death of a baby.”
Ribbon Displays
There are over 200 Ribbon Displays organised across the UK for Baby Loss Awareness Week 2024, with many being organised by Sands groups. You can view all the Ribbon Displays in aid of Sands here.
Angie has also worked in partnership with local Women’s Institute (WI) groups and Southampton Sands to crochet and put together some post box toppers, which are displayed across the community.
The displays and post box toppers signpost to Sands support and raise awareness of the support Sands volunteers offer to bereaved families in Bournemouth and Poole, and Southampton.
“Everything I do for Sands is to ensure that parents and families that find themselves needing to access Sands support, or our local group feel less alone, feel understood, and heard.
“I want parents and their families to know that the thoughts and the feelings they have along their grief journeys are valid and ‘ok’.”
Post box toppers
Pink and Blue and Wave of Light
Angie and the group have also worked hard to encourage some of the local landmarks turn pink and blue during Baby Loss Awareness Week, a key part of the campaign that helps raise awareness of pregnancy and baby loss.
The local Dolphin Shopping Centre, The Twin Sails lifting Bridge, and Corfe Castle will turn pink and blue during Baby Loss Awareness Week, as well as some local churches.
Dolphin Shopping Centre lit up pink and blue
There are also local Wave of Light services that the group have been able to signpost families to, as well as having a live stream video shared within the closed group for parents and their families.
For Angie, Niyah-Rose is always in her thoughts, and at the forefront of all that she does.
“I find immersing myself in volunteering for Sands is a way of honouring Niyah-Rose.
“To have a positive impact on the families I support means the tragedy of losing Niyah-Rose can be used positively.
“I want families to feel reassured that many other people in the baby loss community have felt and experienced similar emotions, and more than anything I want them to feel they have found ‘their people’ in each other and provide them the opportunities to get together and share their experiences in a way and pace that works for them.”
We'd like to say a huge thank you to all the Sands volunteers who work so hard to support their local communities both during Baby Loss Awareness Week, and all year around.
Together, we care.
To find out more about volunteer opportunities at Sands, email volunteering@sands.org.uk or take a look at our webpage.