David and I have always wanted four children

We have four now

But only three in our home

We would very much like a fifth baby

A fourth pregnancy

My first pregnancy with Esther and William ended traumatically

My second was under a cloud of fear because of the first

My third I was terrified

Traumatic birth and sudden infant death

Do not allow much head space for a positive pregnancy

But I do love being pregnant

And inspired by my good friend, Susanne at Ghostwriter Mummy

And the team at Mama Academy

I hope to make my final pregnancy

If I am lucky enough to fall

A positive and well documented one

MAMA Academy is a registered charity

Working alongside The Royal College of Midwives with the aim of helping babies arrive safely

They are also genuinely lovely ladies

Always happy to chat on social media

Professionally and socially

You can follow them on Twitter

And give their Facebook page a like too

For now though, grab a cuppa

And enjoy a Charity Chat with

Heidi Eldridge, founder and Chairman, and Jenny Hicken, trustee and General Manager, MAMA Academy

What does your charity do and why?
Our vision statement is: “to be the UK’s leading charity providing information to expectant mothers and their health care professionals, to promote positive pregnancies resulting in the safe delivery of healthy babies”.
Our mission is to reduce the numbers of stillborn babies in the UK by:

Raising awareness of baby loss.
Empowering parents with vital knowledge and education on health in pregnancy and when to call their maternity team for advice.
Supporting healthcare professionals by keeping them up to date with the latest practices, guidelines and research to provide consistent maternity care.

Sadly over 5700 babies are stillborn or die shortly after birth every year in the UK, which amounts to over 100 every week and UK figures are only just starting to decrease for the first time in 20 years. MAMA Academy is positive about pregnancy and committed to raising awareness of what can be done to help save babies’ lives. By empowering expectant mums with pregnancy information, we can help them feel in control of their pregnancy and confident in reporting any problematic symptoms to their maternity team without delay.
We are also passionate about supporting midwives in their practice by keeping them up to date with current research and guidelines to aid consistent maternity care. We work closely with The Royal College of Midwives to ensure we provide accurate educational information and best practice guidance to enable midwives to offer the highest standard of care for all women.

How did your charity begin?
Heidi: In May 2009 my life changed forever. I was a healthy young mum, pregnant with my first baby. I developed gestational diabetes but was content as I managed to keep my sugar levels low through a carefully planned diet. My antenatal appointments were filled with excitement as everything was going to plan. Both myself and my baby looked very healthy and happy all the way through until I reached 36 weeks. At a routine appointment, my midwife couldn’t find my baby’s heartbeat.

Aidan James Eldridge was born still on the 15th May 2009 weighing just over 5lb. His death is marked as “unexplained” on the post mortem results but it is thought that my placenta had stopped working. The shock and devastation that followed cannot be described and my life was completely turned upside down. I had no idea that babies were still dying in the UK, or how common it is.

I have since been blessed with another son, Tobiah (meaning Goodness of God) who arrived safely into the world on the 1st October 2010 and my daughter Tilly was born by emergency c section on the 6th August 2013. During these pregnancies I made sure I was well educated and armed myself with as much knowledge as possible so I knew the warning signs and when to get checked by my maternity team.

After attending various Sands meetings I noticed that many mums were receiving inconsistent advice from their healthcare team. I did a lot of research and got in touch with my local hospitals to present my findings at their MSLC meetings. It was at these meetings that I learnt of the true value of midwives, and that they need support and access to new information, just as much as expectant mums do. This led me to set up MAMA Academy, the pregnancy school, in 2012.

Can you describe a day in the life of your charity?
Jenny: MAMA Academy is completely run by our dedicated team of volunteers, most of whom have ‘day jobs’ and families to juggle, so our days are often very busy! Heidi and I work closely together (from opposite ends of the country as she is in Surrey and I live in Newcastle!) to coordinate the day-to-day running of the charity, mostly via email and through our various Facebook groups which we use to organise our volunteer activity. Heidi often manages to fit in attending various meetings with the likes of NHS England and the Department of Health around her part-time job and I honestly don’t know how she finds enough hours in the day! We regularly liaise with health professionals from across maternity services as well as supporting mums so we are always dealing with a query from somewhere. Our various volunteers make everything manageable and we couldn’t get by without their amazing support.

How can people donate?
You can donate to us online via Virgin Money Giving or BT My Donate. If you want to fundraise for us you can set up your own pages to collect donations using either of these platforms.
You can text MAMA00 £3 to 70070 to instantly make a donation to support our work.
Good old-fashioned sponsor forms are available on our website to enable you to raise money locally if you are taking part in an event for us.

What more can people do? How can we get involved?
Jenny: There are many ways you can easily support our work, from collecting baby wipes packets to skydiving! We have charity places available for various national events throughout 2015, or you can choose to fundraise for us if you already have your own place in an event. Just contact us contact@mamaacademy.org.uk to see how we can support your fundraising.

Alternatively, we need as many people as possible to help with our campaign work, spreading important messages on social media and in local communities. We have an amazing network of MAMA Bloggers who help to raise awareness of what we do through their own personal blogs – email jenny@mamaacademy.org.uk if you’d like to become a MAMA Blogger. We also love to have the support of midwives and other maternity professionals, so please get in touch if you think you could help.

Any top tips for organising a good fundraising event?
Jenny: Have a clear goal and set an achievable target for your event, then rope in some friends and family to help! Running an event should be fun, not a chore, so delegate out jobs to make everything more manageable and don’t leave everything to the last minute. Make sure you contact us with your event idea and we’ll be able to support by providing MAMA leaflets and posters; sponsor forms are also available to download from our website.

As a bit of inspiration, I recently helped to organise a fundraising event for MAMA at my son’s nursery as part of their annual fun day. We ran a tombola and raffle on the day with donated prizes, and the nursery organised a sponsored ‘Fly-By’ where all the children made things that fly and had a lovely day testing them out in the sunshine with a picnic. We raised over £400. We’d love to support more MAMA fundraisers at nurseries or play groups where the whole family can get involved.

What is your charity’s biggest achievement to date?
Jenny: We were recently granted funding from NHS England to distribute 75,000 of our antenatal Wellbeing Wallets to various hospital trusts around the country who have volunteered to take part in our large-scale pilot this year. It is such a huge achievement for our little charity to have our wallet initiative recognised as a worthwhile investment for national funding, and we’re so proud. We genuinely believe the wallets will make a difference in achieving more positive outcomes for mums and babies, so this is a fantastic development.

What do you hope to achieve in the short term?
Heidi: Our Wellbeing Wallets have already been a huge success with reports of stillbirth being reduced in certain Surrey hospitals where they were initially piloted. In addition to the funded wallets being distributed this year, we also hope to provide wallets to even more interested trusts by the end of 2015. The second half of the year will see more exciting projects for us so watch this space!

What are your dreams, long term goals for your charity?
Heidi: Our ultimate aim is to be the UK’s leading charity providing information to expectant mothers and their health care professionals, to promote positive pregnancies resulting in the safe delivery of healthy babies. We want to save many more babies’ lives and see the UK’s stillbirth rate significantly reduced to the point where the UK has one of the best stillbirth rates in the world rather than the worst amongst high income countries.

What is the one thing you wish people knew or understood about baby loss or grief?
Heidi: That losing a child is extremely complex. It can’t be compared to other grief and remains with you forever. The rawness of the pain dulls over the years but you carry that child in your heart forever.

Do you have a favourite quote or saying?
Heidi: “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny” C.S Lewis
“What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for others” George Elliot

Jenny: “A person is a person, no matter how small” Dr Seuss
“If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely” Roald Dahl

Who or what is your inspiration?
Heidi: The 15 babies who lose their lives every day in the UK drive my passion and determination to prevent baby loss occurring to other families. I also put my faith in God & he gives me the inspiration for our goals and what projects to work on next.
Jenny: The amazing women I have come to know who have either lost babies or have had traumatic pregnancy and birth experiences give me more than enough reason to put my time into volunteering for MAMA. Every mum and baby deserves a happy ending. I hope we can help more of them achieve one.

This month is #matexp month of action, where do you feel there are gaps in our maternity services?
Jenny: We only have to read the many stories that are already being shared via #MatExp on Twitter or in the brilliant Facebook group to know that there are gaps across the board, depending on where you live. Continuity of care, postnatal support, infant feeding, antenatal education…..the list goes on. Cutting across everything is communication which seems to crop up time and again in women’s real stories. Women need to be respected and treated as equals by those responsible for their care, not as an inconvenience.

What can we do to make pregnancy, birth and early parenting better for all?
Jenny: There is much we can and indeed should do to improve the maternity experience for all. I think a collaborative approach is the only way forward – pregnancy, birth and parenting elicit such polarising opinions in people that unless we work together, improvement will never be possible. MatExp is a wonderful step forward in this respect.

What more can we do to support bereaved families?
Heidi: Don’t be afraid to talk about their child and send cards or messages on their anniversary every year. You won’t be reminding them about something they’d rather forget. You will be reminding them that you haven’t forgotten.

A huge thank you to Mama Academy for all they do to help women have positive pregnancies and to try to reduce the number of families who do not get to take their babies home.

If you would like to join in with Charity Chat and have a pregnancy or baby related charity

Please do get in touch

I would love to hear from you and use my blog to share your work