This petition was submitted during the 2017 to 2019 Parliament
Rejected petition Adopt Terminology pre-term Labour for babies born post 16 weeks, not miscarriage
Rejected on
Speaking from experience, I believe the terminology "Miscarriage" should only be adopted for pregnancies lost prior to 16 weeks gestation.
Miscarriage means "loss or expulsion of an embryo before it's viable".
My Husband and I have unfortunately lost two babies. Our first was born 20/09/2016 at 19 weeks; fully formed and born with a heartbeat & lived for a few minutes. Our second child was born 08/08/2017 at 21 weeks and lived for 16 minutes.
I endured hours of labour, the same as any other mother who has delivered a baby. I find it offensive and an insult that my children are labelled as miscarriage- like they didn't exist, when they were born alive, although premature
Why was this petition rejected?
It’s about something that the UK Government or Parliament is not directly responsible for.
We’re very sorry for your losses.
We can’t accept your petition because the language used in hospitals to describe the loss of pre-term babies is not the responsibility of the UK Government and Parliament.
We have a petition to “Lower the age a stillborn can legally be registered.” which you might be interested in signing:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/212105
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.