Coping with the loss and burial of babies

Margaret Owen says the pain of early bereavement never left her, but a Jewish burial tradition provided comfort. Jeremy Cushing shares his family’s experience and suspects professionals made a well-meaning mistake

Re your report (‘They want the truth’: Meet the woman who finds the graves of stillborn babies, 28 May), in 1958 our first baby was among six tiny ones who died, when she was only five days old, in St George’s hospital, London, due to a virus in the maternity wing.

We never knew where she was buried because it was a Jewish tradition that if a baby dies under a week old it will be buried with another unknown Jewish adult. This practice was to encourage us to look forward to having more children, rather than forever grieve for the loved one we lost. We never forgot her – I can still remember her face to this day, although I am now 92, but we did go on to have four more beloved children. The pain never completely left us, but this tradition helped us come to terms with it.
Margaret Owen
London