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Our daughter August unexpectedly died in early labour after a perfect and healthy pregnancy at 41 weeks and 1 day. 

We were so excited  to go into hospital after 12 hours of painful contractions, safe in the knowledge we would finally meet our baby. Because of Covid, Liam couldn’t come into the maternity unit with me so after two trips in and out,  I was finally kept in and Liam was sent home to wait. My waters broke on the way out of the house the second time but the midwife dismissed this after a quick examination, gave me some pain relief, checked the baby's heartbeat and left me to rest.  After an hour the midwife came to check up on us but was having some issues with the heartbeat doppler so I was put in a wheelchair and hastily taken to have a scan. I was asked to ring Liam to come in and I started to panic. The consultant called the most senior person on the ward to come and everything began to seem a bit frantic. Doctors and midwives were in and out and I was then surrounded. After some more frenetic scanning he turned the scan screen to me and said the words no one should ever have to hear. ‘I’m so sorry but your baby has died’ 

2 months down the line we now know that what I thought was my waters breaking, was in fact a water leak ( this had been totally dismissed by the midwife) & the undiagnosed infection I carried was able to reach August. She passed away within the hour. 

My whole world collapsed in that moment. 

 I could hardly breathe. I had come into hospital to give birth and take our baby home. Now I was alone and hysterical in a delivery suite and my baby had died. 

The wait for Liam to get to hospital seemed like eternity . Then came a flurry of more  tears, anger, despair and Liam having to ring and tell our families. To be honest I was so confused and high on the pain relief I didn’t really know what was going on. I had to try and to sleep through the contractions because I knew I still had to go through childbirth...we had a long night ahead of us. 

12 painful hours later I delivered our amazing beautiful baby girl August Mary Jane Weekes, 7.11lbs and perfect in every way.  We got to spend some very precious time with her, but it was never ever going to be enough. Walking out of that hospital a few days later with all the post pregnancy symptoms & pains and no baby was heartbreaking. I was now a mother on maternity leave with no baby, and a house full of baby things with a funeral to organise. We were both just numb.

The post mortem results showed that August passed away from contracting Group B Strep. 

Group B Streptococcus is the UK's most common cause of life-threatening infection in newborn babies, and of meningitis in babies under age 3 months.

Most of these infections are preventable.

The UK does not currently routinely test pregnant women for this despite 20% of pregnant women carrying it. You can pay to have this test done privately for £38, and if found positive a simple antibiotic is prescribed to protect the baby. The test costs the NHS £11. Women are not told about GBS as the NHS doesn't offer a free test. Please help us to change this- if nothing else we should be given the information. An £11 test would have saved August's life.

The UK is one of the few countries in the developed world that DOES NOT offer this test.

No parent should have to leave the hospital without their baby. No parent should have to bury their baby. Please help us to help other families not have to go through any of this. 

Thank you for reading and supporting  x x

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