A Renton mum has spoken out about her harrowing experience of giving birth to her stillborn daughter to highlight Baby Loss Awareness Week.

Julie Campbell, 41, said she wants to help break down taboos around talking about stillbirths and miscarriages and after the loss of her daughter now helps facilitate a support group for people who have a miscarriage or stillborn child.

She said: “With my youngest daughter Emily I found out at routine scan in January 2013 that she had passed away.

“I had to deliver my daughter knowing that she had already passed away. That has to be the most horrific event in my life to date.

“When we were told my husband and I were in utter shock. To be told that your child’s passed away and you have to go into hospital and give birth to death, essentially, that’s quite a horrific statement.

“That is something you will never come to terms with.

“Stillbirth and miscarriages are spoken about but it is still quite a taboo subject. People don’t want to talk to you about it because they don’t want to upset you but in reality we want to have our children acknowledged rather than people not bringing the subject up and not mentioning them. All any parent wants is for their child to be acknowledged.” The mother-of-three, including Erin, age 13, and Michael, aged four, praised West Dunbartonshire Council for deciding to light up the Titan Crane in Clydebank blue and pink for Baby Loss Awareness Week last week and said it would ‘hit home for a lot of people’.

Since the loss of her daughter Julie has been trained by the charity Simba, which organises memory boxes of precious keepsakes for parents to remember children lost too soon, along with a fellow mother to help facilitate a support group for parents.

Julie said: “It’s for anyone who has suffered a loss in pregnancy – regardless of what the stage in pregnancy was they have still lost a child. It’s a lot more common than people think.

“People say ‘oh you’ll get over it’ or ‘time’s a great healer’ and all those platitudes but it’s not something that you are ever going to be able to get over. It’s a journey. Some days are good days and some days are bad days and it’s good to be able to share those experiences with other people.

“Simba provided training for myself and another woman I met while giving birth to my daughter. It’s a peer support group which meets up every month and it’s a place for people to come together to share their experiences and talk about their children. It’s a nice place and it helps you know that you are not alone.” She urged people with friends of family members who have lost children not to assume they don’t want to talk about them and to help keep the lines of communication open.

Babyloss Awareness Week organised by pregnancy and baby loss charities including the Miscarriage Association, ARC (Antenatal Results and Choices), Bliss, the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, Group B Strep Support and Sands.

Judith Abela, acting chief executive at Sands, said: “Now in its fourteenth year we hope that this week will help families feel less isolated and alone by giving them the opportunity to join with others and remember their babies, whether it be in public or private, across the world.” The support group is heled monthly in Partick, and another group organised by Sands is held to the last Wednesday of every month in the Garden Cafe at Vale of Leven Hospital.

Lomond Sands is holding a Service of Remembrance on Wednesday, November 25 in Vale of Leven Hospital Chapel at 7.30pm. For more information about support meetings, to seek support or to offer to help run this group please contact Lomond Sands on 07903 090707.