An opportunity to raise awareness...

Last week our local paper ran a story about Daisy and about my blog.  They gave me the opportunity to thank all my readers for their support and kindness during what has been a very sorrowful time for myself and my family.

Following on from that article, to my surprise the story about Daisy popped up everywhere in all the major newspapers, from The Sun, to the Daily Record, to the Scotsman.  I was bewildered by all the media attention that the story was getting.

The next thing I knew, I was being inundated with media requests for interviews; one reporter even arrived at my front door to try to talk to me about Daisy and the story of my blog.  The story was everywhere and I was feeling more than a little overwhelmed by all this attention from the media.

I decided to contact Sands, the stillbirth & neonatal death charity, for some advice on how to handle the situation.

The Press Officer at Sands couldn't have been more helpful and was a great support to me, taking care of all enquiries on my behalf and giving me advice on how best to take things forward.

We had no interest in "selling our story" to a newspaper or magazine; but we did see that there was an opportunity here, on the back of the attention that Daisy's story was getting, to highlight the very important issue of stillbirth and neonatal death and the work carried out by Sands.  As well as providing support to parents and families affected by the loss of a baby, Sands is also campaigning for more research to be carried out into the cause of these deaths, so that the numbers of babies' lives lost each year in the UK can be reduced.

Grazia magazine work closely with Sands to highlight the Why 17? campaign and to raise awareness of the number of babies who die every year in the UK as a result of stillbirth or neonatal death.  Grazia are urging the government to put more funding into researching the cause of these baby losses and how they might be reduced. 

Grazia was one of the magazines to contact me to see if I would consider sharing my experience with them, to pay tribute to Daisy and to share my ordeal with a view to helping others.  As I was already aware of the work they do with Sands, we decided that this was an opportunity to raise awareness of the issue of stillbirth and neonatal death and the work of the charity.  Grazia had also offered to make a financial donation to Sands in return for publishing the story about Daisy. 

My husband and I discussed this, and we spoke at length with the press office at Sands.  We decided that this opportunity to raise awareness was one we wanted to make the most of.  So this week Grazia will be carrying out a telephone interview with me to find out more about Daisy's story, about me and about my blog, in order to feature the story in a future issue of Grazia magazine.

We cannot bring Daisy back; but hopefully by sharing her story, I can do as much as I can to raise awareness of the issues and of the support available to parents and their families after the loss of a baby.  When Daisy died we felt so alone, so isolated - like we were the only family to ever go through this.  I now know that sadly 17 families, in the UK alone, go through the same traumatic experience every day.

From this point forward I am to commited to doing everything I can to support the work of the Sands charity, in memory of my beautiful little baby girl, Daisy.

Thank you for reading and for your continued support.

Best Wishes
Debbie