SiMBA help for baby loss
A NEW support group for families bereaved of new babies has been launched in Lochaber.
Simpson’s Memory Box Appeal (SiMBA) works throughout the UK, supporting families and friends who have been affected by the loss of a baby before, during or after the birth.
SiMBA currently has support groups in Oban and Lochgilphead, and on Monday May 16 the Lochaber group held its first meeting.
The charity was set up in 2005 by Sara Fitzsimmons, a midwife in Edinburgh, who felt hospitals did not do enough to help parents in their most heart-breaking moments. On Saturday May 14 Ms Fitzsimmons, the charity’s director, won the Caring Hero award at the Daily Record’s Our Hero Awards.
Plans for the new group in Fort William started taking shape when Highland ambassador for the charity, Susan Simpson, discussed starting a Lochaber support group with a local mother who had lost her second child.
Leah Whyte, 35, from Caol, lost her son Iysa last March.
At more than 40 weeks pregnant, Ms Whyte was rushed to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness after Iysa stopped moving. When she arrived in Inverness doctors failed to find her son’s heartbeat but one nurse noticed a flicker of a beat on the monitor and so Ms Whyte was rushed into theatre for a caesarean section. Sadly, Iysa died less than an hour later.
Following major complications during her first pregnancy, with her son Yusuf, three, Ms Whyte developed post traumatic stress disorder. During this time she resigned from her post with the Scottish Ambulance Service and discovered SiMBA.
The pair have been discussing setting up a support group in the area for more than a year.
Ms Simpson said: ‘SiMBA wants to recognise and honour every baby.’
She found SiMBA after her youngest daughter, Eilidh Beth, was stillborn at 34 weeks in 2010. She said: ‘Andrew and I left hospital with empty arms, a broken heart and only our daughter’s hand and foot prints. I knew that there must be more that could be done for bereaved parents and an online search led me to Sara.’
Ms Simpson said: ‘We set up the support groups because we need to bring people together to share experiences with each other and come up with coping mechanism. We want to teach people that the loss of a child is not something you move on from but something we can learn to live with, and together we can.’
SiMBA has now offered Ms Whyte a place on their next training course in October to become a support group facilitator.
Ms Simpson said: ‘We are a positive charity that deals with tragedy but we want to help families gather special memories of their child and encourage them to continue to build memories.’
The charity supplies memory boxes and precious items to hospital units to be gifted to bereaved families. The charity also hosts an annual Butterfly Release that brings families together in an act of remembrance. This year’s events in Oban and Lochaber are on August 20. Meetings in Lochaber will be held from 7-9pm at The Hub, Fort William, on the third Monday of each month.
Ms Simpson added: ‘Being from a small village, I am so passionate about reaching our most rural communities to spread the support.’