A grieving mum said she will "never get over" being told her baby had no heartbeat.
Millie Wylie, from Skelmersdale, lost her third child Lenny when she was four months pregnant on September 16, 2021 after a late missed miscarriage. This is when a baby dies in the womb but the mother has not had any symptoms.
The 23-year-old went through a long and difficult road grieving before making the decision to help other parents. Millie said: “It’s the worst news you could ever get. I’ve been through some deeply traumatic times in my life but nothing compares to being told there’s no longer a heartbeat and your unborn child is dead.
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"Then there was the trauma of having to give birth to his lifeless body — it’s something I’ll never get over and I am still suffering from the horrific ordeal.” To help other bereaved parents, Millie set up a project called Lenny's Love.
The project provides comfort bags to women, baby loss yoga, baby loss retreats and counselling and has already raised over £3,000 — helping many parents in the process. Looking back on the tragic events, one thing which stuck with Millie was the fact she had to pack a bag to go to the hospital, only to return home with no baby.
Thinking about this, she set about creating comfort bags for other mums, including clothing, sanitary products, hair products, a poem, a memorial gift, knitted butterflies to be exchanged between mother and child and a support contact sheet. Millie began distributing the self-funded comfort bags to Liverpool Women’s Hospital and received great feedback from the hospital.
Realising the power of what she was doing, she decided to raise money in order to distribute them to as many bereaved women as possible, while also working on developing the project.
She added: “The comfort bags are only a small gesture and nothing will take away the pain of losing a baby but they have been really well received. We’ve raised over £3,000 so far through the GoFundMe page and various events and we are currently distributing the comfort bags to 40 plus women per week but we’ve also started to provide other services.”
Lenny’s Love has been co-ordinating baby loss yoga sessions for bereaved parents at Planet Yoga and the project is in talks to offer baby loss retreats along with funded private counselling sessions. The long term plan is to register as an official charity in order to apply for funding and help bereaved parents nationally.
Millie said: “Losing a baby is one of the most harrowing things you can go through and there’s no timescale on grief. It’s a really long, hard road and sometimes it’s difficult to know where to turn.
"Some people have no access to counselling or support and can be very lonely in their suffering so the idea of Lenny’s Love is to work with the hospitals to bridge that gap and help parents on their journey through grief.”
Lenny’s Love has a GoFundMe Page — with all donations going towards comfort bags for women, baby loss yoga and baby loss retreats and counselling in the future. Anyone wanting to contact directly to offer any support to the initiative can do so via the Facebook page.
To donate to the project visit the Lenny’s Love, click here. To follow the project follow Lenny’s Love on Facebook
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