A MIDWIFE from Redditch, whose first son was stillborn and her second born at 32-weeks, has welcomed a new paid leave policy for hospital staff coping with pre-term baby loss or premature births.

Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust has become the first in the NHS to offer such support.

The trust, which runs Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Birmingham Women’s Hospital and employs 6,500 people, made the move to ensure colleagues have the time and space to process, grieve and begin to heal.

The package includes up to 10 days paid leave for the person who was pregnant and up to five days paid leave for the partner, where they have suffered with miscarriage, stillbirth, abortion, ectopic pregnancy, molar pregnancy and neonatal loss.

Staff will also be offered paid time off for appointments linked to pregnancy loss, including medical examinations, scans, tests and those relating to mental health.

Faye Sayers, a senior community midwife whose first son, Douglas, was stillborn in 2018 and whose second, Leonard, was born at 32 weeks, said: “This will be incredible for women, families and other children to be able to have the time to be a family and process everything that’s going on at such a difficult time.”

“This new policy is going to allow mums and dads to take the time and space they need, after baby is born, to be able to go to the neo-natal unit and see them every day.

“I think it’s really important they are then given that space and time to adjust when they first come home.

“After having lost Douglas, we needed time to be with our baby Leonard, and appreciate and really take in what had happened.

“Especially having him prematurely it was such a whirlwind.

“You find yourself just getting up, going to the unit, coming home, you don’t particularly process what’s going on really.

“So then to come home, it all comes crashing down a bit, and you realise exactly what you’ve been through and you know that you’ve got this precious baby at home and how lucky you are.”

The trust has about 2,000 families who experience pregnancy loss each year, with fund-raising continuing for Woodland House – a new, purpose-built bereavement centre away from the main Women’s Hospital site.

Mrs Sayers said the building would be an “incredible” support for bereaved families.

She added: “One of the hardest things for my husband, when Douglas died, was having to walk through the corridors of the Women’s Hospital, hearing babies cry.”

“When you lose a baby there’s little things you would never think about until you’d lost a baby – one of them was I wanted to be able to take Douglas outside for the first time.

“One of the most precious things for me was being able to have that space to walk around, to leave the room with him, not just be confined to that one small space.”