Marion Fellows
Main Page: Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)Department Debates - View all Marion Fellows's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
It is very hard to sum up this debate. We have heard some extraordinary contributions from my very brave colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), and from the hon. Members for Henley (John Howell) and for Colchester (Will Quince) and my hon. Friends the Members for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) and for Livingston (Hannah Bardell). While listening to all those wonderful contributions, I reflected on my own story, which is not of a stillbirth but of a bad miscarriage, which I have never mentioned to my children who are alive now. This debate is so important, because it puts into the public domain the pain, grief and horror of stillbirth. As parliamentarians, we must make this a subject that we are able to discuss so that we can improve the life chances of children yet to be born.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran asked the Minister to take steps to improve the statistics. The hon. Member for Colchester said that we do not want to talk about statistics; we are talking about babies. We want to improve the life chances of babies yet to be born. This is a time that I feel proud to be a Member of Parliament, because we can do that. The Sands month for remembering and mentioning stillbirths is important, as is the work of the other charities that have been mentioned. One charity that has not yet been mentioned is Kicks Count, whose work leads directly to women listening to their bodies and ensures that if there is not foetal movement, they can report that. I hope that as a result of this debate, women will be listened to. I know, since I have been there, that women know their bodies. They know when something is not right. If only we could get health professionals to take on board what women are telling them, that could make a huge difference.
Other changes could be made. As my hon. Friend said, health trusts—CCGs in England—should not be investigating themselves. There should be independent investigations into deaths, and those investigations should be time-limited and not allowed to drag on. That is important. Coroners should be able to hold inquests and post-mortems should be carried out to help our understanding of why babies die just before, during and just after birth. It is important that we take that work forward. I understand that men are also affected by stillbirth. We sometimes concentrate on mothers, but we must recognise that it is families who suffer.
As has already been said, there is nothing but consensus among the parties in this debate, both north and south of the border, and that is very important. We all want the best for babies. We all want them to be born. We all want to improve our standing in global statistics. Actually, we all just want more babies to be born safely, and when they cannot be, for their deaths to be investigated so that the fight to help this really difficult situation moves forward.