Baby Loss Awareness Week takes place every year on 9th – 15th October.
Since 2002 the Baby Loss Awareness Week community has been supporting bereaved parents and families, and uniting them with others across the world to commemorate their babies’ lives and lost pregnancies.
This year we come together once more to remember all the much-loved and never forgotten babies that are carried in our hearts forever.
For some people, this will be their first year, first month, or first week without their baby. For others, it will be many more years since their baby died.
This week aims to raise awareness about how pregnancy and baby loss affects thousands of families each year across the UK. It is also an opportunity to bring together bereaved parents, their families and friends, and anyone else who has been touched by lives lost during, at, or soon after birth and in infancy.
Pregnancy and baby loss statistics
According to Tommy’s:
In the UK, it is estimated that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss during pregnancy or birth.
- 694,685 births were registered in 2021 (624,828 in England & Wales; 47,786 in Scotland; 22,071 in Northern Ireland)
- There were 2,866 stillbirths in 2021 (2,597 in England & Wales; 180 in Scotland; 89 Northern Ireland)
- Approximately 53,000 babies were born prematurely in 2021
- The overall percentage of preterm live births in England and Wales was 7.6% in 2021. This is an increase from 7.4% in 2020, ending three consecutive years of a decrease in the number of preterm live births.
- An estimated 1 in 5 pregnancies ended in miscarriage (1 in 6 if we only count women who realised/reported the miscarriage)
- Estimates suggest there are 250,000 miscarriages every year in the UK, and around 11,000 emergency admissions for ectopic pregnancies
- There were 1,719 neonatal deaths (under the age of 28 days) in England and Wales in 2021
- In England and Wales, on average there were 2.7 deaths per 1,000 live births
- 217 women died during or up to 6 weeks after pregnancy between 2016 and 2018 in the UK – this equates to 9.6 women per 100,000 babies born who died due to causes associated with pregnancy, during pregnancy or soon after
