This petition was submitted during the 2019-2024 parliament
Petition Remove 24 week gestation requirement for a baby loss to be registered
We feel that all baby loss should be acknowledged. One in four pregnancies will heartbreakingly end in a loss of a baby, but sadly so many families don't get any type of acknowledgment of their baby. Being able to register their baby would mean so much to many families.
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At the moment so many families don't get any acknowledgement of their baby unless they are at a certain gestation, and so many families would like some type of acknowledgment. Talking to families who have been through a loss, so many have got absolutely nothing when it comes to the loss of their baby. This has made so many families feel like their losses don't matter, but they do.
This petition is closed This petition ran for 6 months
Related activity
New Women's Health Strategy published by the Government
On Wednesday 20 July the Government published the first ever Women's Health Strategy for England. This document sets out the results of the consultation the Government ran in 2021 on women's health, and the actions it is taking to improve the health of women and girls.
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Steve Barclay MP, made a statement on the Strategy and took questions from MPs in the House of Commons, to coincide with the publication of the strategy.
The Secretary of State's statement outlined the key ambitions and elements of the Strategy. These include:
- Ensuring that women are better listened to in the NHS
- Better access to services for all women and girls
- Addressing the lack of research into women’s health conditions
- Better information and education on issues relating to women’s health
- Targeted action on specific areas such as fertility treatment, pregnancy loss, and female-specific health conditions such as endometriosis.
Actions the Government has said it will take to help achieve these goals include introducing mandatory teaching and assessment on women’s health for all graduating medical students and incoming doctors, and undertaking new research and data gathering to increase understanding of women's health issues.
You can read the Strategy in full on the UK Government website. The Strategy only covers England as government policy on health matters is devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Commitments on maternity safety and pregnancy loss
The Strategy sets out ambitions to provide personalised and high-quality care to women during pregnancy. It commits to publishing a new NHS England delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services with clear priorities for improving the safety of pregnant women and their babies.
It also sets an ambition to improve the support available to women and their partners who experience pregnancy loss, including supporting them through future pregnancies, and confirms the Government will introduce a pregnancy loss certificate to enable parents in England who have experienced a pre-24 weeks pregnancy loss to record this.
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