‘My baby died at birth – but I never saw it’
OAPs knit blankets for bereaved mums
Published: 22 July, 2010
by JOSH LOEB
PENSIONERS who suffered stillbirths or had children who died after just a few days are knitting “memory blankets” to help comfort parents who lose children in similar circumstances.
The project is taking place at Rosebush Court, a sheltered housing scheme in Parkhill Road, Hampstead, and forms part of a “Time Bank” scheme, in which residents swap skills with others who live nearby.
The blankets are to be given to bereaved parents by the stillbirth and neonatal death charity UK Sands, which offers support to parents when a baby dies during pregnancy or shortly after birth.
Rosebush Court resident Grace Basham, 79, gave birth to a premature child in the 1950s after going into labour seven months into her pregnancy. The baby lived for three days but Ms Basham says nursing staff never told her what they did with the body.
“I was 18 and they didn’t tell me anything except that my baby had died,” she said. “I never saw it and they didn’t arrange a funeral or anything like that or even tell me what they did with my baby. It still upsets me now.”
She added: “It would have helped me to have seen the baby. It’s like they just took it as if to say, it’s not worth saving.’”
As recently as 1964, parents were left to cope with the experience by themselves, according to another memory blanket knitter, 71-year-old Pauline Charman, who also lives at Rosebush.
“My baby died shortly after it was born and I only saw it because I looked over while they were trying to revive it,” she said.
“He was a boy and I called him Gary. They told me they were going to bury him but there was no funeral and I wasn’t asked to go to the burial.
“I went to the cemetery later to try and find the grave, but the man looking after the place said there were so many graves he couldn’t tell me where my baby was, so I never found it. I still want to find where the grave is and visit it. In our day we didn’t have anything like memory blankets to comfort us.”
Sue Hale, who co-ordinates the distribution of memory boxes to hospitals, said: “We are very grateful to the ladies of Origin Housing’s Time Bank project for making such beautiful blankets. The blankets are the one element of the memory box that we can’t buy. It is lovely to know that each has been knitted with thought and care.”
The blankets can be used to wrap the child in or can be kept in a memory box along with photographs, clothes and other items that help parents grieve for their baby and come to terms with their loss.