Jack and Ben have chosen to donate all proceeds to the 2024 R&R Golf Day to SPRING - a charity who support parents and relatives through baby loss. SPRING have provided incredible support to one of the R&R team who sadly lost their daughter in 2023.

SPRING was established in 1998 to provide support to parents and relatives who have experienced the death of a baby during pregnancy, at, or just after birth. This includes miscarriage, stillbirth and termination for foetal abnormality. Over the years SPRING has evolved to help many families and friends through such devastating times.

SPRING is part of University Hospitals Dorset NHS Charity (Registered Charity Number 1057366) and is overseen by a steering group which includes bereaved parents and caring, committed professionals all of whom are passionate about SPRING and matters surrounding baby loss. We are based at St. Marys Maternity Unit at Poole Hospital and cover Bournemouth, Poole and surrounding areas.

The aim of SPRING is to support through grief at the point of loss, delivery and beyond. SPRING works closely with medical professionals to help provide a high level of care to bereaved families, alongside regular NHS services.

Lily Burgum's story:

On 8th February 2023 during a routine midwife appointment, Beth and i were given the news that all expectant parents dread - 'we are unable to find a heartbeat'.

For the next few hours, we clung onto the faintest hope that Lily was just tucked away somewhere out of range from the midwife and that our follow-up scan would confirm everything was okay. Deep down though, we both feared the worst and sadly a few hours later we were informed at Poole Hospital that Lily had died. She was 28 weeks old.

Up until that point, there had been no cause for concern. This news had really come out of the blue. We hadn't had a chance to begin to process what had happened but before we knew it, we were being taken into a small side room at the hospital where we would meet Jo, Emma and Michelle, the bereavement midwifes from ‘SPRING’ for the first time.

At a time when we were completely lost and didn't know where to turn, Jo, Emma and Michelle reassured us and guided us through what the next steps would be. When and where we would deliver Lily, who to contact regarding arranging her funeral, who to contact should we want to join a counselling group to meet other parents going through the same thing, discussing ways that we could break the news to our eldest daughter, Rose.

We delivered Lily the next day in the SPRING Ward and spent the next few days with her. Being able to stay in one of Spring’s family rooms allowed us to live in our own private bubble, away from ‘the real world’. Here, we could create some everlasting memories with Lily. This time was so special. We held her, wrote her letters, we read her a few books, we told her how much she would have loved her crazy big sister and made the most of the short-time we had with her.

The truth is, Beth and I owe so much gratitude to SPRING who picked us up when we were at our absolute lowest and provided a comforting space where we could start to come to terms with what had just happened and start to take the first few steps of our new life. Without them, I am not sure how we could have coped.

We knew instantly that we wanted to raise money for Spring so that we could help them to continue to do the incredible work that they do. Beth and I are so appreciative that Jack and Ben have chosen SPRING as their charity for this year's R&R Golf Day and we know first-hand that any money raised will massively help families who have been through what we have.