A bronze dolphin sculpture will be installed at the Baby Memorial Garden at Blacon Crematorium for grieving parents spending a quiet moment while visiting their loved one’s grave.
The garden opened in 2000 in a joint venture with Chester Childbirth Appeal and Chester Miscarriage Support with a fitting memorial in the form of a stone water feature depicting a teddy bear with tears coming from its eyes.
But former midwife Pat Daniels MBE, founder of CCA, explained that the garden was in need of a 'make-over' so ideas were floated among parents who have lost babies and the dancing dolphins sculpture proved the most popular. It will be unveiled this spring with the Bishop of Chester, Rt Rev Dr Peter Forster,one of the charity’s patrons, invited to conduct a short service.
Pat said: “It’s not maudlin. It’s not something where people should say ‘Oh, what a lot of fuss. They can have another baby’. You can never replace that child, you can’t.”
Pat, who lives in Hoole, said it was not only mothers who struggled with the loss of an infant.
“Of course in the last few years with the development of ultrasound, now they know what sex the baby is. And the dads get very excited if it’s a boy and will say ‘I was so looking forward to playing football and cricket’.
"I’ve spent a lot of time over the years talking to people and saying ‘Well, it’s something you can’t always predict. Whose fault was it? Nobody’s fault. It’s just nature and it’s been going on for centuries’. And of course the number of babies that are born dead has gone down radically.
“But there is a much more gentle approach and understanding nowadays.”
Pat, 87, a mother and grandma herself, said many years ago it was a different story when still-born babies were not registered as a birth.
“Some of my colleagues and myself wrote to parliament and said we feel it’s so important that a baby – whether it lives or dies - should be registered as a birth and they said I needed to write to the Registrar General, which we did.
"And from that work, babies that were still-born were named.
“And there’s a very good service we’ve developed here in support of mothers. So we’ve got a bereavement counsellor and we have a still-born baby room called the Snowdrop Room.”
The charity’s Comfort Zone cafe and shop, which is based in the women and children’s building at the Countess of Chester Hospital, is currently under threat.
This trading arm raises money to improve maternity facilities and provides a welcoming place for families but chief executive Tony Chambers wants it brought back under the umbrella of the in-house catering department.
Pat said: “We are so proud to be here. I have said to them ‘I just don’t know why you can’t be proud of a charity set up to support you, to provide things you can’t afford which you know are needed’.”
■ A Baby Memorial Service takes place at Chester Cathedral on April 2. This sensitive service will remember all babies that have died from: miscarriage, stillbirth, neo-natal death, foetal abnormality, cot death or any other cause. There is a crèche and refreshments available.
