Content warning: This article contains references to infant mortality, pregnancy complications and surgery After three years of trying to conceive following cancer treatment, Vaishali Bamania and her husband Rahul were thrilled to discover they were expecting their first child, a girl. The 39-year-old from Preston, Lancashire , who longed to become a mother , said seeing the two lines on a pregnancy test following a round of IVF were a dream – one that made her one-and-a-half years of cancer treatment feel “worth it”. Baby Jaya was born at 22 weeks on 19 August, 2019.
But she died just 14 minutes later . “It was such a blur,” Ms Bamania said. “I didn’t really have time to process.
I think I was in shock.” She is joining other bereaved parents and campaigners to call on the next government to address racial disparities in baby loss as a priority. Alongside the baby loss charity Sands , Ms Bamania has written an open letter calling for urgent action to prevent black and Asian baby deaths.
In the UK, the rates of baby loss among black and Asian families are higher than those of white families. Office for National Statistic figures released this week showed black and Asian infants continue to have the highest rates of mortality – Asian 5.7 and black 6.
8 per 1,000 live births in 2022 up from 4.8 and 6.6 respectively in 2021.
For white families the rate is 3.1 deaths per 1,000 live births. Ms Bamania was identified as high-risk early on in her pregnancy but claime.
