By Lucy Corkhill
27th May 2013
SANDS is a national charity offering support and advice for parents whose babies die during pregnancy or at birth. This year sees their first ever Walk for Life event as part of SANDS Awareness Month. People up and down the country from all walks of life: young or old, community groups, schools and nurseries, are invited to come together and walk a minimum of one mile during June. It is an ideal opportunity to get out in the sunshine and walk for fun, whilst raising sponsorship, perhaps in memory of someone, and to raise awareness of stillbirth and neonatal death. Or perhaps you’d like to organise a Sands Strawberry Summer event focusing your fundraising around the humble but delicious strawberry? Other fundraising ideas include a Car Boot Sale, Coffee Morning or a Sands Cake Bake.
Neonatal death and stillbirth is still a taboo subject, and many families suffer in silence. With 17 babies stillborn or dying shortly after birth every day in the UK, SANDS wants to reach out to families struggling with this terrible grief. Their core aims are to offer support to anyone affected by the death of a baby; to work in partnership with health professionals to improve the quality of care and services offered to bereaved families; and to promote research and changes in practice that could help to reduce the loss of babies’ lives.
If you’d like to get involved this SANDS Awareness Month, find out how you can make a difference here.
