Laura Brody and her partner, Lawrence White, placed their baby boy in a plastic bag and brought him to the hospital, where she had the placenta removed. They also wanted to know the reason for the miscarriage and asked for help handling the baby's remains.
However, the couple said that the National Health Services staff turned them away, saying they could not do anything with the baby's remains. The Independent reports that the couple had to bring their baby back home, clear their fridge, and put their little boy's remains there overnight.
Lack of beds
Brody had been bleeding for months but was assured that the baby was okay. However, as per their last scan, the baby had no heartbeat. Brody and White were sent home by the University Hospital Lewisham and were told to wait for a delivery bed.
Brody repeatedly told the hospital staff that she could not deliver her baby at home without medical supervision. Without a hospital bed, however, they had to go home. Hours later, Brody, four months pregnant, experienced intense pain. When she rushed to the toilet, the baby came out lifeless.
The couple wanted an investigative test as this was their second miscarriage. White called 999 but was refused as the matter was not an emergency. So they wrapped the baby's remains in a wet cloth and placed them in a plastic container. BBC reported they went to the hospital and were instructed to wait in the hot and stuffy general waiting room with about 20 to 30 other people.
When they asked if their baby's remains could be taken to the mortuary, the hospital staff told them they had no correct paperwork.
They wanted to preserve the baby's remains as best as possible for postmortem. The couple decided that White take the remains home and store them in their fridge while Brody was admitted for surgery to remove the placenta.
Grotesque
Brody said that the experience was grotesque. She recalled that no one would want their baby in a plastic box. It was just shoved onto the side and completely ignored by the staff as if it was trash.
Nobody would even open the box and look at it, as though no one wanted to acknowledge it, she said.
The hospital said that they do not have the paperwork for the remains to be taken to the mortuary. The couple finds the staff's reason "extraordinary." It was ridiculous to come up with the paperwork late at night after giving birth at home.
White, who took their son's remains home in a taxi and cleared space for their son in their fridge, said it was a "lonely, surreal moment clearing space in my fridge."
Flaws in the health system
Brody said that she wants people to know that harrowing experience of miscarriages like hers is happening in London in 2022, and "not just people in very distant parts of the world," The Guardian reports.
She added that her experience underlined the flaws in the health system in dealing with late miscarriages.
Maria Caulfield, the minister for women's health, offered her condolences to the couple and vowed to improve support for women experiencing a miscarriage. As per Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, a full investigation is ongoing.
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