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Every year, actor Kym Marsh celebrates the birthday of her son Archie, who died at 21 weeks following a premature birth in 2009.
She held her son and organised a funeral for him. Now, her family remembers him at Christmas, and her 13-year-old daughter, born after his death, knows all about him.
But Marsh had no official government certificate of his loss.
Now, she can apply for one as part of an expanded programme for parents in England who lost a baby during pregnancy.
Every year in the UK, an estimated 250,000 pregnancies end through miscarriage before 24 weeks, a loss experienced by about one in five women.
“These certificates mean so much. It makes your baby not just a statistic,” Marsh told BBC Breakfast.
“He mattered to all of us, and for us to not get anything that recognised he was here was absolutely heartbreaking, because he was a little person and he was our little person.”
“We’re so delighted,” she said about the new certificates. “This is a huge win for all of us.”
The government launched the certificate programme in February for parents who experienced baby loss since September 2018, so the system would not be overwhelmed.
It has now opened up to more parents. Parents can obtain a certificate in memory of their baby if the pregnancy ended before 24 weeks. They can also obtain it for pregnancies that ended before 28 weeks prior to 1 October 1992.
Women and campaigners told the BBC how much the certificates matter to millions of people who have suffered what can often be a hidden loss.
Charley Day received one of the more than 50,000 certificates issued since February after her son Rory died 11 weeks into her pregnancy in July.
She told BBC Breakfast the piece of paper has “changed the whole grieving process”.
“For us, that’s just really been incredible – that our baby’s life has recognition,” she said.
Others said they will be applying after waiting for recognition of their losses for years.
Baroness Floella Benjamin, who advocated for the certificates in the House of Lords, said she would be applying for the three babies she lost – the first 40 years ago.
“I think about them all the time when it comes to that certain time of year,” she told BBC Breakfast.
“The grief never leaves you.”
Baroness Benjamin said the certificates matter not only to women, but also to men, as she and her husband “used to cry together when I went through a loss”.
At the time, she had to put on a happy face as the presenter of a children’s TV programme, while grieving inside, she remembered.
She said she tried to make a programme about baby loss four decades ago, but “no one wanted to know, it was a taboo subject even though I know millions of other women like myself have gone through or are going through it”.
Zoe Clark-Coates, who lost five babies, also said she would now be applying for the certificates after spending nearly 10 years campaigning on behalf of others.
The founder of the Saying Goodbye charity began advocating for certificates after hearing from parents who said it would help in their grieving process.
“So many people who go through baby loss have no recognition, no acknowledgement that their baby existed,” she told BBC Breakfast.
“They want something to keep in their family records, for future generations, to be able to see their child was here, even though they didn’t get to stay.”
“It’s a really pivotal moment for people, whether they’ve lost their babies yesterday or 80 years ago, who can finally apply for a certificate,” she added to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Marsh, who still mourns her son Archie, said official physical documentation is “massively part of the grieving process”, making loss more real and helping you to acknowledge and accept.
“Because he was our child, and he matters just as much as the ones that are lucky enough to be here do,” she said.
“A loss is a loss and they were our children.”
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