‘You don’t forget as a mother’: the British parents finally reunited with their stillborn babies

Michelle and Richard Jones at St Ann’s church in Rainhill, Merseyside, where they recently discovered their son Christopher is buried. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

As late as the 1990s, healthcare professionals assumed that if a parent saw their stillborn baby or established any kind of connection with them this would only deepen their grief.

As a result, thousands of babies were abruptly taken from their parents, denying them the chance to say goodbye. Many were buried in mass graves across the country – but parents were often told different or conflicting stories. Most did not know where their children were laid to rest.