AMANDA HOLDEN
TV star tells of stillbirth agony and says she often wonders what her son Theo would be like now
Chris and I talked to him and my tears fell on his face AMANDA ON HOLDING STILLBORN THEO
ACTRESS Amanda Holden often stands at the kitchen window watching her two daughters playing football outside.
As Lexi, 12, and Hollie, six, race around the garden, their mum pictures a third team member with them.
A beautiful, dark-haired Theo – the stillborn son that Amanda and her husband Chris Hughes lost in 2011.
“When the girls are playing footy, I imagine Theo out there with them,” said the Britain’s Got Talent star.
“One of them is in goal, the other two racing around... and I wonder what he would look like now.
“He’d just be going into year three, so a bit taller than Hollie. And Chris was a really cute little boy so I think he would look like daddy.”
Amanda, 47, paused, then sighed: “But, in truth, Theo will always be a baby in my mind. Our precious baby boy.”
She had miscarried a son at 16 weeks in 2010 and was seven months’ pregnant with Theo when a scan revealed his heart had stopped.
Distraught and unable to endure giving birth, she and Chris opted to have a Caesarean at West Middlesex Hospital, where Amanda had undergone midwifery training for an ITV documentary in 2009.
She had remained close pals with three of the midwives – Jackie Nash, Pippa Nightingale and Natalie Carter – who rushed to be with her.
Their care and support in the following months convinced Amanda that all parents of stillborn babies should be helped through their grief.
That is why today, at the start of Baby Loss Awareness Week, the TV star has announced she is setting up a fund via baby charity Tommy’s to help provide special bereavement counsellors at all UK maternity units.
It will be known as Theo’s Hope.
Amanda said: “In the UK, one in every 225 pregnancies ends in stillbirth – one of the highest rates in the developed world.
“More than 3430 babies die every year, with half of them totally unexplained, as in Theo’s case.
“That leaves parents agonising about what went wrong and if it could happen again, leading to depression and other mental health issues.
“But fewer than half of maternity centres have midwives trained to help bereaved parents. We need to change that. My three amazing women got us through the worst time in our family’s life. Everyone deserves that level of support.”
Recalling Theo’s birth, Amanda said: “Pippa and Natalie were in theatre with Jackie.
“I wanted to be awake, so I had an epidural. But I was absolutely terrified of holding him.
“I couldn’t bear the thought of holding a dead baby. I was scared what he’d look like. But the minute he came out, Jackie took him and said, ‘He’s beautiful’. So I said, ‘Give him to me. I’m his A mummy’.” manda who is pictured fighting back tears at the painful memory, added: “He had the most incredible eyebrows and lots of thick, dark hair. He was nearly 3lbs, so perfectly viable, and his little face and body were perfect.
“Chris and I just talked to him and my tears fell on his face.”
The hospital had a special room where record producer Chris and Amanda could spend time with their son, away from the cries of healthy newborns on the maternity unit.
“We kept him overnight with us,” she said. “Jackie took a footprint and cut a lock of Theo’s hair for a memory box. She also took a photograph... all the things you’ll later treasure but aren’t in the right headspace to consider.
“We asked to keep the blanket that he was wrapped in. Before we said goodbye, we gave them a babygro to put him in.
“We had to register our baby’s birth and also his death.
“We couldn’t face a funeral. We didn’t want to put him in a tomb, so we decided Theo should be cremated and we held our own memorial service later.
“Chris was a real warrior. We have an amazing relationship but, God, I loved him even more after the way he stood up and protected me.
“He was going through grief in his own way and his stress later came out as shingles.
“For a while, we didn’t want to see anyone except Jackie, Pippa and Natalie. I asked endless questions. Was it mercury in my fillings, something in the water, something I ate, the way I slept? They answered them all with tireless patience.”
The cause of death was not definitively revealed in a post mortem examination. Amanda said: “There was a tiny dent in one of the three arteries in the umbilical chord which could have cut his blood T supply. They couldn’t have saved him.” he pain of losing Theo never goes away. Amanda said: “I dream about him and sometimes I speak to him. I feel honoured to be the person that carried him that far on his journey. I think about him every day.”
We joined Amanda on a visit to Tommy’s Stillbirth Research Centre and Rainbow Clinic at St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester.
She wept as she met several families who had suffered loss but had been helped to go on to have healthy babies.