My daughter Maila Angela Viana Morais was stillborn on December 29, 2022. I was given the option to bond with her, and although I was scared and it took me a week to muster up the courage, it turned out to be one of the most cherished moments of my life. However, I am painfully aware that this is not a universal option. In many parts of the world, some babies are heartlessly taken away from their parents, placed into undignified conditions like tin cans and bags.

A 2008 study conducted by Cacciatore J, Rådestad I, and Frøen JF revealed that out of 3,500 mothers who did not get to hold their baby, a staggering 80% regretted it and attributed their decision to uninformed choices. These statistics underscore the immense emotional impact that the lack of this bonding opportunity can have on parents and families. Moreover, the study is a testament to the importance of this final moment, not for closure, but as a profound part of parenting and grieving 

We must call on governments and healthcare institutions worldwide to recognise bonding time with stillborn babies as a fundamental human right. By doing so, we can ensure parents are given the opportunity to decide whether they want to hold their baby. This includes providing informed choices and supportive dignified environments.

What this looks like is explaining to parents why creating memories matters, demystifying the misconception that stillborn babies don't count, are bad luck or evil and ensuring parents don't have to be near other parents being congratulated for giving birth to living babies. 

Implementing this change will require training healthcare professionals to respectfully guide parents through their choices and ensuring facilities are equipped to support the emotional needs of bereaved parents. No family should experience the added trauma of having their choices denied or mishandled at such a delicate time.

Parents should know that they have the right to take and keep pictures and videos of their little ones, locks of hair, hand and footprints, hand and foot moulds and leave with keepsakes. These are the only memories we get to keep of the babies we grew, our children, human beings.

Sign this petition to urge policymakers and healthcare leaders to recognise and institutionalise the right to bond with stillborn babies, thereby offering an essential step in the lifelong healing and missing journey for grieving parents across the globe.

Together, we can make a difference.

The impact of bonding as shared by parents:

Rachel Burrell, Rhema’s Mum:

Bonding with my daughter after she was stillborn was invaluable to me. I got to spend time with her and create some memories to keep forever. I was able to dress her and hold her which will always be the most precious memories I have.

Sue Helen, Miracle's Mum

Bonding with my baby was not a choice, it was my lifeline. Miracle is my daughter of my flesh, my blood, my bones. She lived inside of me for almost ten months; she is another extension of me. Just because death came into the picture does not erase that. We need to tear up the foundations we’ve been taught about grief and start again, because a baby who has died is still a baby. She is still a child. She is still human.

But I’ll be honest  at that time, I didn’t think of it as “bonding.” I didn’t have that language. Back then, it wasn’t a concept or an idea  it was simply being with my child. That’s all. I wasn’t doing anything special, I wasn’t trying to fulfil some kind of process. I was just a mother spending time with her daughter. And I had every right to be with my child, just as she had every right to be with me. People label it as “bonding,” but for me and Miracle’s dad, it was simply love  it was being. It wasn’t that it wasn’t special  it was the most sacred thing I’ve ever done. But it was also simple in its truth: just me being with my child. Not an act that needed justification or permission, just a mother and her baby existing together in love.

Holding her, seeing her, touching her wasn’t just “important,” it kept me alive. If I had not held Miracle, I don’t think I would be here today. In that moment, I was finally able to comprehend what we had achieved together to really see the human being I had grown. I counted her toes, looked at her face, her lashes, her eyebrows. She was whole. She was real. She was mine. She is mine.

Every story, every mother, every pregnancy, every child they’re all unique. None are the same, not even close. And yet, in the system and in society, we’re often treated as though our experiences can be reduced to one single script. But it’s not like that. I was depleted, defeated, with nothing left to give  and still, birthing Miracle was my awakening. Throughout my pregnancy I was so dissociated from my body, from myself, but Miracle was my lifeline  through pregnancy, through labour, through birth, and even now.

It should be mandatory for parents to be given the chance to see and hold their baby because that bond, that time, that being together, matters beyond measure. But of course, there must always be choice. If a parent says no, that’s okay. No one should ever be forced or made to feel guilty. Every parent should have the right  the option  to be with their child, in whatever way feels right for them.

We’ve inherited so many cruel myths about grief  like being told, “Don’t look at your baby, you’ll never be the same.” But it’s those who have never walked this path who say such things. Because when you see your child, when you hold them, something shifts not into more pain, but into truth. I had no life left in me, and yet Miracle gave me life. She gave me breath. She gave me meaning.

And to those who come after me, to any parent standing in that unbearable space  I’d say this: follow your heart. Follow your soul. Tune out the noise. Don’t let anyone’s fear decide what you do with the few moments you have with your baby. Because not seeing them, not holding them, is a regret that will stay with you for life. When people say, “You’ll never be the same again,” they’re right  but not for the reasons they think. No one is ever the same after loss, especially not after losing a child. And why should we be? But knowing that you spent time with your baby, that you held them and loved them that becomes a thread of comfort you can hold onto in this life you now have to live without them.