WINSFORD MP Antoinette Sandbach led a rare emotional debate in the House of Commons last week speaking about stillbirths and infant deaths.

The MP for Eddisbury, who lost her five-day-old son in 2009, is aiming to raising awareness of baby loss and to pressure government into making sure conditions in maternity wards are improved.

Antoinette secured the debate, along with Will Quince MP, to coincide with Baby Loss Awareness Week and spoke in the Commons on Thursday, October 13.

Antoinette said in Parliament: “Parliament is helping to break the silence around the death of a child, which is the most devastating loss that can happen to any parent.

“Baby loss awareness week has been running for 13 years, but we in this place need to ensure that it affects policy and delivers better outcomes, and that when outcomes do not change, we hold the Secretary of State and the Minister to account. I know that they have recognised the problem, but we will need to see a change in the figures by 2020.”

Each year about 3,500 babies in the UK are stillborn, defined as being born with no signs of life after 24 completed weeks of pregnancy - one in every 200 babies.

Another 2,000 babies die within the first four weeks of their lives, during the neonatal period.

Ministers say they are aiming for a 20 per cent reduction in stillbirths and infant deaths by 2020.

After the debate, Antoinette told the Guardian that she was ‘overwhelmed’ by the bravery of all of the speakers and said that the debate had gone ‘extremely well’.

Antoinette said: “Thursday’s debate on Baby Loss was extremely well attended by Parliamentary colleagues and went a long way to raising national awareness of miscarriage, stillbirth and infant death during Baby Loss Awareness Week.

“I was overwhelmed by the many moving contributions made by MPs and have to commend the bravery of all the speakers for talking so emotively about this sensitive issue. All sides of the Commons were in agreement that more must be done to improve prenatal and bereavement services across the country.

“As co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Baby Loss I will continue to put pressure on the Government to improve the conditions in our maternity wards and do more to help those who have undergone the harrowing experience of losing a baby.”