Jacqui’s story

Tell me a bit about you and your children 

I live in Staffordshire with my husband and our daughter, Maisie. Maisie is my second baby. I had my first child, Phoebe, in October 2024 but she passed away at three days old.  

Phoebe was incredibly special to us. She was a gorgeous, beautiful girl with such a gentle soul. We only had three days with her, but we could tell she was special. I’d had a difficult labour and emergency c-section. Once she was here, we thought she was ok.  

Losing Phoebe was a mixed bag of so many emotions. I’m so grateful that I have such a strong support system around me. Our families have been there for us.  

I struggled to find stories online of people who had experienced something similar to us. A lot of the discussion out there is about loss during pregnancy, but Phoebe passed away neonatally. I felt quite alone in that sense. Although I did make a couple of friends in similar situations to mine, and since then I’ve seen more and more stories of those whose baby passed away after being born.  

We chose to have Phoebe buried in a family plot not far from our home, which is a huge comfort to us. We go every fortnight to freshen up her flowers. It’s become a part of our routine. We also take time to celebrate her as best we can on her birthday. 

We’ll bring Maisie up knowing she has a special older sister. 

How did the Care of Next Infant Programme support you? 

As part of the CONI programme, I was offered frequent visits from a health visitor. It was with the same health visitor each time which I really appreciated, because she knew my history and my situation without me having to re-explain it each time. I also appreciated how the CONI programme based their support on what I wanted. The frequent visits were completely optional. I chose to have monthly visits for the first three months and they’d check Maisie over, note her weight gain, and answer any questions I had. These visits were extremely helpful, and really gave me peace of mind and reassurance. I was also able to send texts in between visits about any of my concerns. 

CONI has been so beneficial for us. Having that support there is massive, and stops me from going over things in my head that happened to Phoebe. Caring for Maisie feels like our first time parenting, even though she isn’t our first baby. When we were waiting for Phoebe’s post-mortem, there was so much doubt whether we’d done something wrong. The report told us that her death was unavoidable for our circumstances, but I was still hugely affected, and worried with Maisie that I’d do something wrong. Having CONI there reassured me that I was doing a good job as her mum. 

Were you given a monitor on the CONI programme? 

We were given a Snuza monitor and used this for the first week whilst we were in hospital. It really helped us to settle and get a bit of sleep. We still have the Snuza at home if we ever feel like we need to use it.

Why did you choose to share your story today? 

I chose to share my story because one of the most important things for me, is that anybody who has to go through the same type of experience knows that there are others out there that have gone through it too. You can come out the other side, and there is so much support available to you.