Manx charity, A Little Piece of Hope, is holding a Baby Loss Awareness Week which will culminate in the Wave of Light ceremony on Douglas Promenade tonight (Tuesday).

The charity, which helps bereaved parents, children travelling to hospital and children who need help with mental and physical disabilities at home, is run by Helen Walmsley and Aileen Rampton.

In 2012 Helen’s daughter, Hope, was stillborn at 25 weeks. She recalled: ’It was a complete surprise. I didn’t feel her moving and it just didn’t feel right, even though we’d had her scanned a couple of days before and everything had been fine. We went up to the hospital and found out she’d passed away.’

At the time, she said that what she really needed was: ’Just someone to talk to. A lot of the people you know might have children or be pregnant so it’s difficult and you don’t want to impose on them.

’We also realised there was something more that could be done for families, especially financially, with headstones and funeral costs.’

Diane Rubery, lead midwife for bereavement, and her colleague, Bryony Manning, have put together a display in the atrium at Noble’s Hospital which explains what they can do to help anyone suffering the loss of a baby.

This might typically mean a baby like Hope, who was found to have stopped moving and had to be delivered stillborn.

Diane said: ’We are in the process of forming the Forget Me Not team, which is a team of midwives who will exclusively look after a couple throughout their period of loss: this will be from when it was discovered right through to the post-natal period, up to a month after.’

Diane said: ’We also have a bereavement suite, a specific area within the Jane for parents whose babies have been lost.

’There we have more of a home from home environment, it’s less clinical. We’ve got a cot that allows the mums to spend as much time as they want with their baby, because it keeps the baby cold, and they can stay with the baby.

’It’s basically for them to spend time and make memories with their little one.’

This might include taking photographs and videos; snipping a lock of hair, and making hand and foot prints and casts of the baby’s hands and feet.

Diane said: ’I think it’s giving these children recognition which they don’t actually have.’

There will be a book of remembrance with Diane’s display and another at Strand Shopping Centre for parents to write the names of the babies they have lost.

On Tuesday evening (October 15) all these names will be read out at the Wave of Light event which is taking place on Douglas promenade at 6.30pm. Candles will be lit.

For more information see A Little Piece of Hope - IOM on Facebook.