I am a 34 year old married woman with a 2 year old son.  On 4th April this year at 1.25am I was 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant when our beautiful baby daughter, Xanthe, was stillborn. I had a “low risk” good second pregnancy with Xanthe and was booked for a home birth.  My husband and I had bonded with our daughter over 9 months.  I did everything that I have read to be beneficial when pregnant: taking exceptional care to eat a healthy organic diet, and specially formulated multi-vitamins with folic acid in pre-conception and pregnancy. I avoided smoky places, drank no alcohol, no caffeine and used no dangerous chemicals in the home.  I talked and sang to my baby, felt her move every day. Saw her move on the ultra-sound scans and attended all my ante-natal appointments. We attended an ante-natal birthing group, I knitted a blanket for my daughter, I wrote a daily pregnancy diary and some short stories for her.  

I had a quick labour and so I did not find out until she was born that she was dead as the midwife came late on.  I could not believe nor understand the midwife and my husband when they all told me that my daughter was dead.  The obstetrician estimates, from various physical indicators, that Xanthe died 12 hours before she was born. Cruelly, just hours before labour began and on my son's 2nd birthday. This shock was, indeed is, deeply distressing.  My husband and I held our baby daughter for many hours but all the time signs of death showed more.  We planned and greatly wanted our daughter and are absolutely devastated by her death.

No reason has been found for Xanthe's death despite extensive testing of her blood and mine as well as examinations of the cord and placenta. She weighed a healthy 8lb 3oz at birth.  We did not have a post-mortem but we were told that in our daughter's case there were only a few very rare disorders that could not be entirely ruled out, although generally even these would show some outward manifestation.  I had no bleeding in my pregnancy, no signs of a sudden reduction in fetal movement, a good blood pressure, the scans all showed Xanthe to be fine, with a good heart rate and neither me nor my daughter had any signs or symptoms that concerned myself, my midwife or my GP.

I have read many things about associations between stillbirth and socio-economic deprivation; stillbirth and caffeine consumption; stillbirth and alcohol consumption; stillbirth and previous caesarean birth.  None of these things apply in our situation. I am sure there are many people who have had a stillborn baby who, like us, find that the scant research there has been does not apply to them either.  The correlations/links that have been addressed generally turn the blame to the mother, something which is grossly unfair.  I have also read that many unexplained stillborn babies show poor fetal growth; again this was not the case with our daughter.  It seems outrageous that no one has any idea what caused our daughter to die.  Our consultant obstetrician, GP and midwife have all been extremely supportive and helpful but they have ruled out all possible avenues.  

I am currently a full-time mother but trained as a solicitor and last worked as an advocate/researcher for MIND. My husband is a writer and PhD student.  We are amazed to find out that obstetrics is still so rudimentary that they do not know why a seemingly healthy baby should suddenly die in a "low risk pregnancy".  We are shocked by how often this occurs and yet how little funding and research there is in this field.  This could happen to any couple and my husband and I want to raise awareness of this so that far more effort is put into finding ways to prevent deaths such as Xanthe's.  We feel that preventing the death of babies should be the highest priority of any government in terms of providing funding for research; surely nothing can be quite as important as protecting our youngest.

Emma

Mum to Xanthe, stillborn 04/04/07