'Our wombs are owned by Westminster': Myleene Klass hits out at government for neglecting women experiencing baby loss
10 December 2024, 10:22 | Updated: 10 December 2024, 10:25
Watch Again: Nick Ferrari talks to miscarriage campaigner Mylene Klass | 10/12/24
Myleene Klass told Nick Ferrari that the government is failing to support families going through miscarriage and baby loss, calling for official data collection and a graded model of care.
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Asked to respond to figures from LBC showing that at least 89,000 stillborn babies are buried in unmarked mass graves around England, Ms Klass said the "staggering" number is just "the tip of the iceberg."
She told LBC's Nick Ferrari at Breakfast that the government's failure to collect official data on baby loss leaves the issue invisible.
'Our wombs are owned by Westminster': Myleene Klass on mass graves of stillborn babies
She said: "The saddest part of this is nobody ever wants to talk about it.
"There is no nice way to talk about dead babies and they have literally buried the problem, but there's just far too many to hide away now.
"We know at the moment that it's 20,000.
"That's a finger in the air sort of guess, because the former government, on many occasions, given the opportunity, refused to take up the chance to collect data.
"We collect data on the trainers you buy at Christmas and track your phone’s GPS, but we don’t know how many women are miscarrying."
Five Former health secretaries have called for a national memorial to the lost babies, but Ms Klass says without systemic change, "we're still not giving what these babies deserve: A voice and the recognition, the official recognition they should have gotten."
The radio host criticised the lack of a clear strategy for supporting parents who experience miscarriage or baby loss.
She described a "postcode lottery" for access to Early Pregnancy Units (EPUs), which are often closed on weekends, leaving women with nowhere to turn.
She also pointed to the absence of specialised training for doctors, citing that providing progesterone could save up to 8,500 babies annually.
