Coping With A Mother's Grief, The Daily Telegraph

Milo’s life was heartbreakingly short. The beloved only child of Georgie and Richard Leatham was just three weeks old when he became another cot death victim.

Losing a child is a tragedy that isolates the grieving parents, whose family and friends are often too shattered by the event to be of comfort. A month after Milo’s death two years ago, Georgie, then 26 – took the advice of her sister and friends, who felt she should seek professional help to cope with her pain: “None of my contemporaries had even had children, let alone lost one. My basic trust in life was challenged. Everything felt dangerous and frightening. You don’t believe that people can help you.”

The person she turned to was Julia Samuel, who co-founded the Child Bereavement Trust in 1994 with Jenni Thomas, its current director. The trust is the first charity in Britain to focus on bereavement training and support for professionals who work with grieving parents – and increasingly, grieving children. Part of its work involves a unique partnership with the Department of Health, to place bereavement counsellors in individual hospitals.

This month, the trust was awarded a grant from the Diana, Princess of Wales, Memorial Fund to help support bereaved children and young people. There are more than 200,000 children in this country coping with the loss of a parent. The trust has set up an advisory group, which includes young people who know what it feels like to lose a mother or father. They will take an active part in advising how the money might be best spent.

Jenni Thomas, a pioneer in bereavement counselling, who works at Wycombe Hospital, Buckinghamshire, explains the work: “At the point of death, you don’t need expert counsellors; doctors and nurses are there. The time for counsellors is in the weeks and months following a bereavement.”

As a first-time mother facing the loss of a baby only weeks old, Georgie found the experience traumatic but she praises the staff who helped her through it. “It all happened so fast. My maternity nurse ran in and gave Milo mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The ambulance man injected his heart with adrenalin and put him on a ventilator, which bleeped and raised my hopes.”

Richard – son of Lady Victoria Leatham – was with Georgie when the news was broken that their son had died; they felt disbelief and shock. “The nurse encouraged me to say goodbye to Milo,” Georgie remembers. “She asked me to hold him; he was very cold and looked as though he was sleeping. I am glad she made me do that; he looked very peaceful.”

Going home, however, was a nightmare. “Getting a taxi at 6am from the hospital, everything looked different – the cars, the trees. It was as though someone had cut me with a machete. It all took so little time. In less than hour, I was sitting in my flat with no baby.”

Georgie’s first meeting with Julia was a positive experience. “I definitely knew that I could talk to her,” she says. “Looking back on it, I was very keen to talk, I didn’t feel normal. It was suddenly all right for me to talk about Milo. I was surprised how much I cried. It was a huge relief.”

She started seeing her counsellor every Wednesday – “hanging on, week by week” – as she puts it. “I was not seeking sympathy, but empathy. Sympathy is negative, and doesn’t help. ‘There, there, you’ll have another baby…’ It’s condescending. But with empathy, it becomes a shared problem.”

Initially, Georgie made good progress, but after a few months, she began to despair. “I was moving from grief about Milo to general grief about all the things that had happened, to me in the past three years, such as my mother’s death, and the feeling of being redundant.”

Julia saw her role with Georgie as being to provide regular support in her turmoil. “When you’re grieving, you feel there’s no end to it,” she explains. “It is comforting to know there is someone there for you on a regular basis. You need to feel the pain in order to heal, and talking about it is the most effective way of expressing it.”

Apart from her private practice, Julia, 39, established the post of counsellor for paediatrics and maternity at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington – one of the first of its kind in the country. The Child Bereavement Trust plans to install four more counsellors this year – with half of the funding coming from the NHS, the other raised from private sources.

Julia went into counselling in 1988 to resolve personal difficulties. “I went to a support group, and loved the feeling of unity. I had never heard people talk so honestly before.”

After secretarial college, an early marriage to a businessman, Michael Samuel, four children and various jobs in publishing and property development, Julia became chairman of the appeals committee of the charity Birthright in 1990. She started counselling on a voluntary basis for Westminster Bereavement Service, then got her diploma accreditation from the British Association for Counselling. “Counselling isn’t for everybody,” she says. “But it should be on offer for those who decide they do need it. It can be life-changing.”

Statistics relating to child death in Britain make bleak reading. About 700,000 babies are born every year, of whom one in 100 dies – a total of 7,000 babies – either before, at, or soon after birth. A further 9,000 children die before the age of 14, due to accident or illness, such as meningitis. Abnormalities revealed in scans also lead to 4,000 to 5,000 terminations each year.

Medical staff who come into contact with grieving families learn some support skills on the job; most importantly, they can offer mutual support. But most welcome additional training in coping with traumatic situations, even though some view counsellors with suspicion. Dr Nelly Ninis, clinical research fellow at St Mary’s Paddington, does research into meningitis and recently attended a one day course with the Child Bereavement Trust.

She says she found it incredibly helpful. “We’re so involved in the aim of saving a child, we’re often not very good at dealing with death generally. We see it as a failure – and when you’re feeling bad and guilty, you’re not at your best. It’s good to have help at such times.”

Dr Susan Laurent, consultant paediatrician at Barnet General Hospital, says she was overwhelmed when she went on a weekend course – the lone doctor among midwives, nurses and counsellors. “We learnt more from the bereaved parents who were there then from the professionals. Parents said doctors and nurses sometimes ignored them when the outlook was hopeless. It’s crucial to find something positive or kind to say to parents, even in the worst situation.”

To grieve properly, parents need information, time, choices and recognition of their loss, Dr Laurent says. They need help with administrative chores, such as registration, and advice – as well as the possibility of taking their baby home one last time, or keeping personal mementos, such as a lock of hair, a name tag or a foot print.

However, Dr Ninis believes that, in certain situations, doctors need distance. “We are often criticised for our offhand manner, but sometimes it’s not good to be close. Sometimes, I have to tell parents to turn off the ventilator. I would not feel comfortable doing this as their friend, but I can do it as their doctor.”

The aim of the trust, says Julia Samuel – who was a friend of the late Diana, Princess of Wales – is to reach hospitals nationwide, with trained counsellors spreading the word. She is proud of having been able to make a difference with clients such as Georgie – who has just had a baby boy, Ludo.

Georgie believes her sessions with Julia have had a lasting effect. “I have more confidence in myself, because I have survived. I feel I’ve been given a second chance. If I hadn’t seen Julia, I wouldn’t be as happy as I am now and would have been more anxious about the pregnancy. I was incredibly nervous about what I would be like with a baby more than a month old; but Ludo is now five months.”

She says Milo will always be with her. “I think of him being around. When I get a parking space, I always say, thank you Milo. I do believe he’ll help me with Ludo.”

The Child Bereavement Trust: 01494 678088