Sarah: Pain of losing baby is with us always
Wife of ex-PM tells of their heartache
SARAH Brown has said a piece of her “will always be broken” after she and her former prime minister husband, Gordon, lost their daughter at 10 days old.
The couple’s first child, Jennifer, was born seven weeks prematurely on December 28, 2001, in a hospital in Kirkcaldy but died just over a week later.
She and Gordon set up the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory at Edinburgh University in 2004 and the Theirworld Edinburgh Birth Cohort – two initiatives looking into the causes of babies being born early and finding better methods of care.
Sarah told the Griefcast podcast: “It’s always part of you, there’s a little piece of you that will always be broken, the pain is there.
“It’s a huge loss that Gordon and I live with every day. We can remember every single moment with her because it was so precious.
“Th e NHS w a s extraordinary. But what was frustrating was we didn’t have an explanation, no one could explain quite why it had happened.
“That set me off on another journey to try to think about what we could do to bring greater knowledge to that area.”
The PR executive, who married the former Labour leader in 2000, said the Browns were quickly told after Jennifer’s birth that she couldn’t survive. She added: “It was about spending the time with her.”
The Browns went on to have two sons, John, 17, and 14-year-old Fraser.
Lockdown stopped the family visiting the churchyard where Jennifer is buried but they have been able to lay flowers again.
Sarah added: “I also feel she is very much around us.”