Thousands of babies tragically die each year. In 2014, around 5600 babies were stillborn or died soon after birth in the UK, shattering the lives of expectant parents, their families and their friends and the people who have cared for them.

That’s why bereaved mother Rachel Telford and her mother Linda Philo are on a mission to provide support to bereaved parents.

Working with Sands, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity, Rachel, Linda and other bereaved parents and grandparents have recently launched the West Berkshire Sands Group offering people who live locally, and who have been affected by the death of a baby, support.  

The new Group hopes that parents and families from Newbury, Thatcham, Hungerford, Andover, Basingstoke and Reading will find great benefit from the new support.

Support meetings will be held on the 2nd Monday of the month at 7.30-9.30pm, starting on Monday 13th June at Thatcham Methodist Church Hall, Chapel Street, Thatcham, RG18 4QL.

Rachel Co- Chair of West Berkshire Sands, said:

“When I lost my son Charlie, I felt so alone in the pain and sadness that came with such a loss. I had never heard of Sands prior to having been through loosing Charlie.

“Unfortunately our neighbouring Sands Groups were just too far away for me to travel. We held our first fundraising event four months after we lost Charlie raising over £6000.00. Ever since then I have made it my mission to raise awareness of this amazing charity and hope our newly formed more local group can help other parents going through a similar loss and just make them feel that they are not as alone as they might think they are. 

“We are also hoping to expand our meetings to include all family members affected by such a loss in the future.”

If you wish to contact West Berkshire Sands their helpline is Tel: 07555 545822 or you can email: westberkshiresands@gmail.com

The support Group also has a Facebook page: https://m.facebook.com/West-Berkshire-Sands