This article references baby loss.
Parents who lose a baby before 24 weeks of pregnancy in England will now be able to apply for a ‘baby loss certificate’ in recognition of their bereavement.
In a statement, Health and Social Care Secretary Victoria Atkins said, "Losing a baby can be a hugely traumatic event, and the introduction of certificates to formally acknowledge the loss of life is a positive step towards better supporting women and parents affected.
“I’d like to thank charities and campaigners for their continuous work in bringing awareness to baby loss and making the certificates launching possible.”
Here, we revisit GLAMOUR's interview with Bex Gunn and Laura Buckingham, who have been advocating for better support for baby loss for years.
“Should we do the usual, mate?” Bex asks Laura. Bex Gunn is gearing up to tell me the story of how she met Laura Buckingham, with whom she co-founded The Worst Girl Gang Ever: a no-frills, no-BS platform for those who've experienced baby loss and miscarriage. They've both told the story countless times – but that doesn't make it any easier.
It didn't occur to Bex that her fourth pregnancy would end in a miscarriage. She had heard the statistic that 25% of pregnancies end in loss, but nothing could have prepared her for the words, “I'm really sorry, but your baby has no heartbeat.”
She describes her grief as being “completely disproportionate” to her loss because “everyone else had forgotten about it almost within a few days or a week.” In the hospital, she was given a flimsy pamphlet with flat advice about “management options.” There was nothing that said, “Oh, your heart will feel like it's absolutely shattered, and you won't want to carry on, and you will have to cry in the shower to hide your feelings from your other children… There was no survival guide at all.”
Convinced that there must be other women in the same “void of despair,” Bex wrote a blog about her experience. Within 24 hours, her words had been published by a national news outlet; her inbox had been flooded with women sharing their stories. “There were women in their fifties and sixties saying, ‘This happened to me 30 years ago. This happened to me 20 years ago, and I still think about it. I still remember the due date, I still have the name.’” She ended up creating a Facebook group for everyone to share their experiences. Enter Laura.
By the time Laura joined Bex's Facebook group in 2020, she'd suffered seven losses. She had started trying for a baby seven years prior and had experienced an ectopic pregnancy, a molar pregnancy, miscarriages, as well as earlier losses. She welcomed a son in 2019. The following year, she published a book, It Will Happen, about her journey through miscarriage, loss, and motherhood.
With a background in nursing, Laura felt she could advocate for herself and fought to get specialist support. When she had her son, she realised that so many other women may not “have had the confidence or the knowledge to ask the right questions and to seek help from the right people.”
“Just because we've been through a devastating loss, we don't cease to be women… We don't stop finding things funny.”
This is how she became a “warrior” within the baby loss community. “I just wanted to be able to give other people the knowledge and encouragement to do that for themselves.”
Recognising a kindred soul in Bex, she messaged her on Facebook, and they soon agreed to join forces. “The most terrible part of going through loss, or one of the most terrible parts, is the isolation – nobody talks about it because everybody feels ashamed, embarrassed, or like they don't have the right,” Laura tells me.
But the second you mention baby loss, Laura explains, “People come out of the woodwork. They come out and say, ‘Oh, I had a miscarriage’ or, 'We've been trying for three years, and we're going for fertility treatment.' Or ‘My mum had a stillbirth before she had me’, and all these stories come out. The greatest comfort is knowing that you are not alone.”
It started with a podcast: The Worst Girl Gang Ever. From the first episode, Bex and Laura offered something different. Instead of pitying platitudes, they served up “This is shit. It's fucking shit, and we are so sorry that you are going through this” realness.
“That's certainly what I'd have wanted,” says Bex. “None of this medical jargon, none of this ‘Better luck next time’ or 'At least you've already…' In fact, no sentences starting with ‘At least…’”
“We've concentrated on humour as a recovery tool within the podcast,” she adds. “We have a real laugh, we sing, we chat, and we take the piss out of each other. Just because we've been through a devastating loss, we don't cease to be women, and we don't cease to find things funny.”
“It's a privilege to provide any kind of light in someone's darkness.”
Next came the book The Worst Girl Gang Ever: A Survival Guide for Navigating Miscarriage and Pregnancy Loss, which has been an invaluable source of support for many women – one Amazon reviewer described it as “the lighthouse in the storm.” While Bex and Laura have carved a vital space for women to feel all their “ugly feelings”, their own loss is never far from their minds.
When I ask if it's hard to advocate for others in such a deeply personal space, Laura says, “Well, I don't think Bex has ever told her story on a podcast and not cried.”
“I know I'm going to cry now,” starts Bex. “A really common misconception is that pregnancy after loss is like a huge relief, and people just go, 'Oh, she's over it now. She's got another baby.' But it doesn't erase the pain.”
Bex has used this pain as “fuel to help other people,” but as the podcast and book gained traction, she found herself talking less and less about her loss. “But when I do talk about it, I feel like I'm back there.”
There have been times when The Worst Girl Gang Ever had to wait. “During both of our pregnancies, we had to cancel podcast recordings,” Laura explains. “There was one recording where we were talking to someone who'd lost her twins at 17-18 weeks, and at the time, Bex was 17-18 weeks.” Later on, Laura, then 33 weeks pregnant, was preparing to interview someone who had lost their baby at 34 weeks. “I was like 'I'll be fine, I'll be fine', but Bex said ‘No, we’re cancelling. It's too much.”
After Laura had her son in 2019, she had five more losses before welcoming her second son earlier this year. For her, the podcast has enabled her to process trauma. “For a long time, I completely shut down,” she tells me. “I didn't process anything.”
“But the more you talk about it, and the more you hear other people talking about it, things become easier to tell and to share again. Talking and writing for me have been the best tools for surviving it.”
The Worst Girl Gang Ever is a movement, and it's grown bigger than Bex and Laura ever imagined. “We're so proud of the gang and those within it,” says Bex. “It's such a huge privilege to be able to provide any kind of light in someone's darkness.”
The Worst Girl Gang Ever: A Survival Guide for Navigating Miscarriage and Pregnancy Loss is now available in paperback (HQ, £9.99).
For more from Glamour UK's Lucy Morgan, follow her on Instagram @lucyalexxandra.
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