Baby Loss Awareness Week: Why We’re Supporting Sands as Our Charity of the Year
Trigger warning: This blog discusses stillbirth and baby loss, which some readers may find distressing. If you have been affected by this topic, support is available from Sands (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity) or you can call their helpline on 0808 164 3332.
At Eventus Recruitment Group we believe in supporting causes that hold real meaning for our team. Each year, we come together to choose a charity that has personally touched one of our lives — a cause that deserves greater awareness, compassion, and support.
As we mark Baby Loss Awareness Week (9th–15th October), we are especially proud to be supporting Sands, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity, as our Charity of the Year. Sands provides vital care, understanding, and advocacy for families experiencing the unimaginable loss of a baby, while also working to improve bereavement care and reduce baby deaths across the UK.
Their work has had a profound impact on one of our own team members, Jo Hood, who shares her deeply personal experience below. By opening up about her journey, Jo helps raise awareness and understanding for the many families who walk this path — and highlights why the work of Sands is so important.
Written by Jo Hood – Principal Consultant, Eventus Recruitment Group
Each year at Eventus we choose a charity that is special to us as a team to support, raise awareness of and hopefully raise some money for. This year I was delighted that Eventus chose SANDS.
On 27th July 2005 I gave birth to my first son Oliver Thomas Hood. Oliver never breathed his first breath; he had died in my womb at 41 weeks. I was told I had experienced a stillbirth – I had never ever heard of this. I had breezed through the pregnancy in ignorant bliss just taking for granted that sometime in July or early August 2005 I would be a mum. That I would be rushed off my feet with the demands of a newborn, catching a nap when I could between feeds, proudly showing him off to friends and family – you get the picture. But no, we left hospital on the morning of 28th July with no baby, just our overnight bag and some leaflets on stillbirth.
Thank goodness for those leaflets because one of them was for SANDS (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death), and it was this charity that I turned to when no one else knew how to support me or what to say to me. I needed to speak to other mums who had been through the same thing. I needed to speak to medical professionals who could explain to me time and time again what had happened. They guided and listened to everything from questions about “do I sign his name on cards?” to questions about trying for another baby. I needed to just cry big ugly tears to someone who wasn’t involved in our loss. SANDS gave me all of this and so much more – without doubt they were my lifeline for the months that followed Oliver’s death. Without them I simply do not know what I would have done.
It’s a charity that on some levels I wish I didn’t know, but it’s also a charity that I am beholden to, forever grateful to and always in their debt.
So thank you Eventus for choosing SANDS – a beautiful charity for all of those beautiful babies who didn’t quite make it. xx
In Memory and Awareness
During Baby Loss Awareness Week, we stand alongside everyone who has experienced the loss of a baby — honouring their memories and the families who carry them in their hearts. On Tuesday 15th October, the global Wave of Light invites people across the world to light a candle at 7pm in remembrance of all the babies who have died too soon.
From all of us at Eventus Recruitment Group, we send our love, support, and solidarity to every family touched by baby loss.