Jo's fundraising helps other grieving parents

A GRIEVING mum has been helping to improve facilities at a specialist bereavement unit for parents experiencing baby loss which opened at Derriford Hospital last year.

- By ANNETTE BELCHER

Since its official opening in October 2023, Derriford’s Snowdrop Suite has been working to make a difference to families who have lost a baby through miscarriage, still birth or neonatal death.

The ‘home from home’ facility was made possible by donations totalling more than £200,000, with some bereaved families raising money in memory of their babies.

One of those women was Joanne Smith. Her baby son Fred was born at 22 weeks and five days; Fred died hours later in July 2017. It was a devastating time for Joanne and her husband Colin.

Joanne said: “The care I had was outstanding. The compassion from the midwives and my two consultants have touched our hearts and we will never forget what they did for us, but, later, when we reflected on my time in hospital and looked at our photos, we realised the facilities weren’t great. The bereavement suite back then was a room with a single bed and a sofa. The family room was used as an office, there was a cot, a two-seater sofa and an office table. The babies’ clothes were on a bookcase next to leaflets, and when Fred’s grandparents came to visit, they had to sit on office wheelie chairs.