Bereaved dad takes on London Marathon so The Whittington Hospital can support more parents of stillborn children

Jonathan Abrams and his wife Amy hope to create a legacy for their daughter Arella, “angel” in Hebrew, who died in 2012.

They want to break the taboo on stillbirths, which happens in about one in 200 births in the UK.

The couple have had two more daughters, Zoe, three, and Annie, two, but Jonathan thinks of Arella every day.

Amy went for a routine check-up a week before the due date when she was told the tragic news her daughter had no heartbeat.

Jonathan said: “We were catapulted into an unknown world which was the opposite of where we should have been.

“It was almost like a ‘sliding doors’ moment where really we should have been planning to have a newborn baby, but we were transported to an alien world which was almost like a nightmare, of planning for the total opposite.

“Really from then on, our life changed.

“I had a very acute understanding of how fragile life is.”

Jonathan is very grateful for the “amazing” support from The Whittington, especially as not all hospitals have a bereavement midwife – a midwife who is specially trained in supporting parents who lose a child.

Their bereavement midwife, Jane Laking, was a great friend and support for Amy following Arella’s stillbirth and went on to deliver her daughters Zoe and Annie.

Jonathan, who lives in Barnet, wants to raise money so the Archway hospital can train other midwives to do the same.

He will also buy equipment such as a cold “cuddle cot”, which allows bereaved parents to spend more time with their child’s body.

When Arella was born, Jonathan said she had “beautiful dark hair” and looked as if she was sleeping.

The couple were able to take some photographs of her, and were given some fingerprints and a lock of her hair to take home.

Mr Abrams is grateful that, because he is running a marathon for Arella, people are writing her name in messages.

To sponsor him, you can visit justgiving.com/fundraising/Jonathan-Abrams.