For Cedar

As many of you know, our darling son Cedar Hashim Humphrey Patel-Bray was born sleeping on 15 February 2025 at 03:19, just 6 weeks away from his due date. The devastation and disbelief that has consumed us since the morning we were told that our son had died is entirely indescribable. After almost 9 long months, we were just about ready to believe that we could finally start being excited about our new life as a family of three. And then our entire world came crashing down around us.

Being thrust into the dark and lonely world of baby loss, is not something that James and I wish for anyone. Our experience with becoming parents has been shaped by death, grief and pain instead of the joy, and excitement of growing our family. Navigating the daily reality of what we have been through has been debilitating, confusing and overwhelming.

And yet, we are just one family in tens of thousands.

We quickly found out that 1 in 250 babies are stillborn in the UK and every day 13 babies die shortly before, during or soon after birth. This is not a small statistic, and yet neither of us had any idea stillbirth remains so common in Britain.

Stillbirth remains one of those taboo subjects that no one wants to, or knows how to talk about. And yet when you bring this horror to a more personal level, it really hits home: everyone reading this will know at least one family whose baby has been stillborn. Learning how to support friends and family through something so awful is so important.

Presently, 50% of stillbirths remain unexplained in this country, and Cedar's death fell into this category. That's not because there was no cause of his death, rather because the research is not being carried out to find the answers.

This is why we are raising money in Cedar's name.

We want to support some of the UK's excellent and vital charities that are researching to advance knowledge to stop babies from dying, while also providing parents and families like us with the support we need to endure daily life without our son.

Three charities in particular have been essential for us: Sands, Tommy's and Noah's Ark Children's Hospice.

Tommy's is the largest charity focused on stillbirth in the UK. Tommy's works to stop the heartbreak and devastation of baby loss predominantly through funding groundbreaking research to identify why pregnancy goes wrong, which helps us to understand how we can prevent complications and loss. Tommy's also provides expert, midwife-led advice for parents before, during and after pregnancy, especially advocating for and supporting those who have lost babies in future pregnancies. Their Rainbow Clinic based in Manchester is the only clinic in the country that has been set up for research into stillbirth, and provides clinical support for women following a stillbirth. We have been lucky enough to have had a consultation with Professor Alex Heazell who leads this centre.

Sands similarly supports anyone touched by stillbirth or neonatal death both through bereavement services and research projects. Sands was the first charity that we were pointed towards in the early days after Cedar's death and it was through their community support infrastructure that we discovered other parents in the same situation. Whilst peer to peer support is helpful for so many, Sands is also doing incredible work to keep pregnancy and baby loss at the top of the political agenda. Sands has played a central role in lobbying the government to put parental bereavement leave on statutory footing, and has been a strong advocate for the ongoing national inquiry into the deep failings of UK antenatal and maternity services. Along with Tommy's, their work in this space is essential to improving maternity services to save babies’ lives.

Noah's Ark Children's Hospice is a place that is very close to James and my hearts. A beautiful sanctuary in the middle of High Barnet, down the road from where Cedar was born offers care and support for children needing end of life care and families who need to be held through these painful moments, until and after their child dies. They have offered us free bereavement support and therapy since Cedar died and we continue to derive a lot of comfort from our visits there, because of the compassion and care offered to us by all their staff and volunteers. We can't thank them enough.

These charities remain absolutely essential in helping parents and families like ours to find answers, hold systems to account, grieve and honour our children, and rebuild the strength to carry on. All donations made on this page will be shared equally between the three charities. We hope to keep this page open indefinitely, so we can continue raising funds for them year after year.

Thank you for your love, support and generosity in helping to prevent more babies from dying and in memory of our beautiful son, grandson and nephew Cedar X