Baby Loss Awareness Week

About Baby Loss Awareness Week 2021

Baby Loss Awareness Week takes place from 9 to 15 October every year. It’s an opportunity for parents, their families and friends to acknowledge and remember their precious babies who have died. It is is led by Sands in collaboration with over 60 charities in the UK.

Baby Loss Awareness Week is an opportunity:

• for bereaved parents and families across the world to commemorate their babies’ lives
• to break the silence around pregnancy or baby loss in the UK
• to ensure all bereaved parents in the UK get the best possible care, wherever they live, when they need it

This year the theme of Baby Loss Awareness Week is wellbeing, exploring what this means to people from all walks of life who have been affected by pregnancy and baby loss.

Support and Information

For confidential support, information and guidance around baby loss, our helpline team is available to take calls and respond to emails 9 am – 5 pm, Monday to Friday, or via the LiveChat icon on the website.

Latest

The Pennant Family

The Pennant family share how they’re fundraising for Child Bereavement UK in memory of their son Ned and how they’ve raised funds with three previous challenges.
Ministry of Sound Classical

The Wyldes | Cornwall
Rudimental

The Wyldes | Cornwall
Y Not Festival

Pikehall | Derbyshire

Telling a child that someone has died

It is important to tell a child of any age when someone important in their lives has died, and ideally this is done by someone who is closest to them.
Supporting bereaved children and young people

Children and young people grieve just as much as adults but they show it in different ways. Find out how you can help them and more about child grieving.
Grieving for a child of any age

The agony of losing a child of any age is unparalleled. There is no age or point in time that makes it any easier. No parent expects to face the death of their child and no grandparent expects to lose their grandchild.
When a grandparent dies - the impact on children and young people

The death of a grandparent is often a child or young person’s first encounter with the death of someone important. Parents have a great deal to manage when their own parent or carer dies. There is the grief associated with their own loss, but also the reactions and responses of their children to the death of a grandparent.
Children's understanding of death at different ages

Babies and young children have no understanding of the concept of death yet, long before they are able to talk, babies are likely to react to upset and changes in their environment brought about by the absence of a significant person.
Child Bereavement UK training

Child Bereavement UK designs and delivers training for professionals in health and social care, education, the emergency services and the voluntary and corporate sectors, equipping them to provide the best possible care to bereaved families.
Contact us

Contact details for our Helpline, departments and services.
When your baby dies

When a baby lives only a short time or dies before birth due to miscarriage, stillbirth or a painful decision to end the pregnancy, people may assume that the loss is not important. This is simply not the case.
Children's understanding of death at different ages

Guidance on children's understanding of death at different ages and stages of development.
UK death & bereavement statistics

A parent of children under 18 dies every 22 minutes in the UK; around 23,600 a year. This equates to around 111 children being bereaved of a parent every day.