This is an excerpt taken from an article written by Julia Davies and published on the Dumfries and Galloway website on the 17th of December 2010.
The full article can be found by clicking here.
HOLDING your baby for the first time is usually the happiest moment of any mother’s life.
But imagine if that baby was stillborn and you knew that, unlike the other mothers in the hospital ward, you wouldn’t be taking your beautiful child home.
That is exactly what happened to brave mum Andrea McDonald who was left devastated when her daughter was tragically stillborn.
She has spoken out in a bid to raise awareness of the problem in the hope health chiefs will do more to try to prevent similar tragedies from happening in the future.
Andrea had been looking forward to being mum to her baby daughter Ella and was heartbroken when that opportunity was cruelly taken from her.
The 42-year-old from Dumfries, who works as a physio clinical support worker at DGRI, told the Standard: “Leaving hospital without your baby is the most horrendous feeling any mother can experience. It’s heartbreaking, devastating, it makes you feel completely numb and it is something no mother will ever get over.”
Unfortunately, Andrea is not the only mum who has experienced this heartache.
A group of mothers who have been through this devastation set up a Dumfries branch of the national charity organisation Sands (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death).