CRADLE is supported by a team of Trustees across the UK. With a wide range of skills, interests and commercial experience, the team work closely together to ensure CRADLE charity objectives are met.
As the Founder and Chair of CRADLE Charity, I lead a national team of volunteers who support the delivery of our charitable objectives to bring comfort and support to anyone affected by early pregnancy loss.
I have 16 years experience of working for corporate PLCs and more recently as a self-employed consultant supporting the growth of businesses and charities via income generation and partnership development. My passion includes connecting people, growing communities, and working with healthcare professionals and employers to support their bereavement services.
My Journey
When trying to conceive it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t get pregnant or that once I become pregnant, that something would go wrong.
My focus whilst trying to get pregnant was simply to remember to take my prenatal tablets, think of baby names and to have pregnancy tests ready at home. I didn’t over think things and carried on with day to day life with a hugely stressful job. It was around 9pm one evening in May 2015 that I found out I was pregnant at the GP on call centre in Southport. I knew due to my physical symptoms that something was wrong and I knew not to get excited.
The same evening I was admitted to the Gynaecology Ward at Ormskirk hospital, and following the diagnosis of an ectopic pregnancy I received care as an outpatient. On the 20th May 2015, I became unwell at home and collapsed, I called and ambulance and four hours later had surgery to remove my left fallopian tube and my baby.
Over the next 18 months, I changed my career and joined the Ormskirk Hospital bereavement team as a volunteer, providing patient insight to healthcare professionals to support their bereavement services at Ormskirk Hospital. Using my own experience as a patient during my ectopic pregnancy, I started a small project called My Ectopic Pregnancy (@EctopicMy – Twitter) and pledged to donate 10 Bags of toiletries to Ormskirk Hospital for other women admitted for Ectopic Pregnancy. The national support for this project led to the creation of the Ambassador role, support was extended to women experiencing any type of pregnancy loss and the project became an organisation called CRADLE.
CRADLE was introduced to healthcare professionals from across the North West on the 16th July 2019 at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital Baby Loss Conference. The first official CRADLE service was launched for bereaved parents in September 2019 at Ormskirk Hospital and over the following 12 months the team grew to 90 Volunteers and launched a further 40 NHS CRADLE services across the UK.
We provide a range of resources and services for healthcare professionals to support their bereavement services for women and partners before, during or following confirmed pregnancy loss.
Follow me
Twitter @CradleLouise
Contact me
louise@cradlecharity.org
I am Jules Lindop and I have been the Ambassador for CRADLE at UHNM NHS Trust at Royal Stoke and County Hospital Stafford since 2019. I work full time as an H&S Administrator in roadmarking and am also a wellbeing lead within my workplace, something that is extremely important to me.
All my life I had dreamed of having children. I met my wonderful husband Tony in 1988, we married in 1989 and following months of trying for a baby we were referred to agynaecologist who prescribed medication to help me to ovulate. A few months later I was admitted as an emergency to the hospital where it was found I was suffering an ectopic pregnancy. This was found to have ruptured, resulting in emergency surgery to remove both the baby and my left fallopian tube. We were told it was unlikely to happen again, something we believed.
Three years later in 1993 I found out I was pregnant again, this was again an ectopic and I underwent surgery involving the pregnancy being injected with Methotrexate to terminate. In 1996 the same thing happened again and this time I decided to take the heartbreaking decision to have my remaining fallopian tube removed.
We were offered a round of IVF and spent a long time thinking about it. We decided that this wasn’t for us and planned a life without children of our own and looked at ways we could live our life.
For many years I hid my grief and then I found ‘My Ectopic Pregnancy’ and something resonated so I had to reach out. Sometime later Louise contacted me and told me about CRADLE and asked if I would become an Ambassador, I had no hesitation in saying yes and in May 2020, just as the world opened up from COVID, I took my first bags into Royal Stoke Hospital to the Bereavement Midwives. I have since connected with a variety of other units at Royal Stoke Hospital who support ladies during the death of a baby in pregnancy.
Being part of the CRADLE family is extremely important to me and supporting other women who have travelled the same journey is an important part of what I do.
By way of introductions my name is Leanna Brace and I am a specialist nurse at Guys and St Thomas’ Hospital.
I have worked in Women’s Health for 16 years and feel passionate about delivering exceptional care for those suffering from early pregnancy loss. I am motivated to make what is a really distressing journey a more bearable experience, one step at a time.
The CRADLE charity is important to me because it helps bridge the gap in care, not just in different departments within the hospital, but also among multiple hospitals across the country. Therefore, bestowing unity for the care of women and people experiencing early pregnancy loss. CRADLE is a nationwide service that offers many ideas and positive changes, helping to ensure care is paramount and providing ongoing emotional support. I initially started as an ambassador by promoting CRADLE into my hospital Trust. I have used this platform to propose new projects such as better care environments, education and provided continuity of care within multiple disciplinary teams and departments. CRADLE has helped educate new nurses and supported studentswithin women’s services. This has blossomed their confidence to care for grieving families, which in turn provides positive experiences for our services users.
I believe exceptional care should be free and available to all.
Every pregnancy matters.
I currently lead the spiritual care and chaplaincy service at Southport and Ormskirk Hospital Trust. I have been involved with CRADLE since the early days, first meeting Louise on a Hospital Bereavement Focus Group which was set up to create ways of improving our patients’ experience following a pregnancy or baby loss.
CRADLE has become a significant part of how we support mums and families following a loss. Through my role I offer person centred support to people, be it spiritual, non-religious or religious depending on the context. I am also involved in planning gathered events which include individual funerals, the annual Sunflower Planning Ceremony, Wave of Light Events and Annual Baby and Child Remembrance events.
Since 1999 I have been involved in the development and delivery of the monthly Our Babies service, which is a supportive event for families following an early pregnancy loss. As well as the offering of a service it has included the development of a baby garden at two crematoriums and at Ormskirk Hospital.
The service is held each month and anyone experiencing an early pregnancy loss are invited, along with their families. Cradle is important to me as it supports the aims I have always tried to aspire to since the first time I offered support to a family following a baby loss in 1988. Over the years I have held various roles within faith communities, and University and Hospital Spiritual Care and Chaplaincy Services. I have always aspired to offer care appropriate to the circumstances.
I’m Anne King and I first got involved with CRADLE to help raise funds for Comfort bags, we then distributed over a number of local trusts. The passion of Louise and the team was infectious, and it left me wanting to do more for those who had been affected by the death of a baby during pregnancy.
Becoming a Trustee of Cradle allows me to play a pivotal role in shaping the charity’s strategies, I hope to utilise my experience as a Business Development Manager and Equity Director to ensure it can effectively help those in need.
I have a passion for Marketing and PR and believe strongly in the power of keeping CRADLE in the spotlight. My strong professional networks within the industry and specifically within the Built Environment will also be something I can utilise.
I am passionate about doing more for the baby loss community, not just the families affected but also the Healthcare Professionals providing the service. I believe with my professional experience, alongside my fellow Trustees, we can make a real difference.
My name is Belinda Champion, known as “B” and I currently work as a Matron for Women’s Services at The Portland Hospital for Women and Children in London. I have worked in Women’s Health for 25 years, working in several fields including sexual health, Gynaecology oncology and Early Pregnancy.
I am passionate about championing and promoting excellence in delivering bereavement care for women and their partners suffering pregnancy loss and they should be able to access the care they need and deserve.
I became an ambassador for CRADLE on behalf of a hospital Trust I worked for at the time during the pandemic as there was a gap for women and their partners accessing bereavement care at the most devasting and vulnerable time of their lives.
The CRADLE charity aligned to my values and was inclusive to the needs of those suffering pregnancy loss. Their shared vision of every pregnancy matters really stood out for me and empowered me to advocate for women and their partners as well as educating health care professionals to provide the right care at the right time.
In my current role as Matron for women services, I can contribute and develop service improvements that positively influence practice and improve women’s health provision, in particular Early Pregnancy Care. The CRADLE charity has helped me to provide education and training for health care professionals and students across the organisation and provided them with the necessary skills to support bereaved families.
My role within CRADLE has developed and more recently I was invited to join as a Trustee working more closely with Founder and Chair Louise Jackson, Dawn Brown, Safeguarding and Compliance Director, Leanna Brace, specialist nurse and Fellow Trustee and all our Trustee members to influence at board level and help to continue to drive changes to positively impact the experience women and their partners have during and following pregnancy loss.
Hello, I am a BACP Accredited psychotherapist specialising in perinatal loss. I also hold accreditation with the Foundation for Infant Loss and have built a number of years experience and training in working with women and birthing people who have experienced miscarriage, TFMR, birth trauma, ectopic or molar pregnancy as well as supporting clients through subsequent pregnancies after loss.
It is my passion and commitment as a therapist to support all women and birthing people without prejudice or discrimination; respecting and acknowledging diversity and difference at all times. I run my own private practice in London and also facilitate CRADLE Connected groups.
I joined CRADLE in 2021 as Counsellor after being bowled over by the passion, determination and drive of the charity’s CEO, Louise Zeniou. During my time with CRADLE, I quickly discovered how inconsistent the level of emotional care was across the UK for bereaved parents, and the importance of providing a service that offered effective support as soon after the death of a baby during pregnancy as possible. I believe, at its heart,
CRADLE is a charity that extends compassion, gives hope and connects those who may be suffering alone and in silence. For many of my clients, it has been a lifeline. I am hugely honoured to be a trustee of CRADLE.
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