Sands United: Meet the West Yorkshire men who have shared their experiences of baby loss for a documentary

Behind the latest figures, from 2020, and shared by the leading stillbirth and neonatal death charity Sands, are stories of overwhelming grief and heartbreak - and some of those, from men in West Yorkshire, have been shared in a documentary which aims to shed light on the reality of baby loss.

Our Angels has been created by 18-year-old college student Georgia Cook and premiered at the end of last month at Huddersfield’s John Smith’s Stadium.

“I chose to look at child loss as it is still a taboo subject,” Georgia says. “The documentary is focused on a local Sands United team. They are a team for dads, brothers, uncles and grandparents who have experienced child loss. It is a safe space to talk about what they have been through and to organise fundraisers to help support Sands.”

Alex Walmsley founded that particular Sands United team, based around Huddersfield, in March 2020.

It is for men across West Yorkshire affected by baby loss and offers them the chance to play football with others who have been through similar experiences as well as providing a peer support network for the men if they want to talk about their bereavement.

“There’s a lot of support for women around baby loss and rightly so, especially as a lot of the things for women are physical as well as mental.

“[Men] perhaps don’t look for that support or it might not be immediately available...A football team is just easy, you can play, you can meet other guys..

“It’s kind of therapy through exercise and sport as well as that camaraderie of being with a group of guys that just get it. You don’t have to start from scratch and explain what baby loss is or how you deal with it, because all the people have been there.”

Alex’s first encounter with baby loss came at just six-years-old, when his parents lost his brother at 20 weeks. “I remember mum being pregnant and we were supposed to be having a baby come home and then that not happening,” he says.

Fast-forward to 2017 and Alex and partner Olivia fell pregnant with their first child together. The couple, who live in Heckmondwike, went for their 12 week scan at Dewsbury Hospital, where they found out the baby’s head was not developing properly, a condition called anencephaly.

“We made the decision to have a medical termination,” Alex says. “If the baby had gone full term, it would have been instant death, it wouldn’t have survived. Obviously Olivia would have had to carry to full term knowing that.

“It’s difficult to make that decision, go down that route. To be on labour ward where there’s other babies born and you’re there with a baby being born but not to be taken home.”

The pair then fell pregnant again “and it was like a carbon copy,” Alex says. “It was the exact same scan room at Dewsbury, I was sat in the exact same chair.”

Again, the baby’s head - and spine too - had not formed properly. “I did a lot of blaming myself because I was the new component in this. Olivia had had a successful pregnancy before with (Alex’s stepson) Isaac. Given my mum and dad’s history, I thought it must be me, I turned inwards and thought it must be my fault.”

A while later, the couple fell pregnant again, but, sadly, early scans revealed there was no heartbeat and they experienced a miscarriage.

“For me at the time of all this, I was focused on supporting my wife and my family and keeping the house going,” Alex says. “You kind of neglect the fact you need to look after yourself as well.”

Alex took part in several fundraising events to support Sands and when he and Olivia married, they had charity pins as their wedding favours.

He later heard on the radio about a Sands United team in Brighton and approached the charity to see if there were any local to him. The nearest was Doncaster, so he decided to set up one himself in West Yorkshire.

He founded the team a week before their son Toby, now two, was born in March 2020 and the couple now have baby Teddy too, who was born in April.

Ian Twitchett, who lives in Pontefract, is among those who are part of the team. He and his wife found out they were expecting their second child in October 2016, but experienced a miscarriage just before their 12 week scan.

They then fell pregnant with twins due in October 2017. At 30 weeks, one of the babies wasn’t doing as well as the other and it was decided the best thing was to get them out of the womb and under hospital care - and so they were born in August that year.

The family spent four weeks in hospital in Sheffield where the twins, Penelope and Pippa, spent time in the intensive care and high dependency units, before the family were transferred to Leeds’ St James’s Hospital for another four weeks and then were able to go home.

After eight days together as a family, on the birthday of their eldest daughter Evelyn, Pippa became unwell.

“She was as white as a sheet of paper, no colour in her whatsoever and her breathing was really shallow,” Ian says. “We knew something was wrong.”

It was determined that Pippa had liver failure and she spent several weeks in hospital, including on ventilation support, and underwent a number of blood transfusions.

Shortly after Christmas 2017, a doctor explained that treatment was not working anymore and Pippa wasn’t going to survive. She spent her last moments at Martin House Children’s Hospice.

“It was really important for me and my wife that everyone who had been there from the start with Pippa, had a moment with her in the room before we removed the breathing support,” says Ian. “Then she was passed to my wife and I and she died in our arms.”

“Everything I do, the football team, the documentary, is about raising awareness and letting people know this happens way more than people think. In my own experience, there’s a lot of dads who don’t say anything and bottle it all up and it’s not a nice place.

“A big thing to me is that dads see this film and know that there’s other people who they can speak to and who are going through the same thing.”

Georgia, from Mirfield, made the Our Angels film as part of her broadcast journalism course at Barnsley College, determined to support the charity after hearing about Sands United.

She has friends and family who have lost babies and wanted to help raise awareness of how prevalent it is. “I want people to know there are others in their position. No one experiences things the same but that there’s people who have been through similar,” she says.

Sands charity aims to reduce the number of babies dying and to ensure that anyone affected by the death of a baby receives the best possible care and support for as long as they need it.

Visit www.sands.org.uk or call the helpline on 0808 164 3332.

To view Our Angels, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9yVUP8E7jA