You could start by contacting the Bereavement Office of the hospital where your baby was born or died. You will need to tell them:
- the full name and address of the mother at the time of
- the baby’s birth
- the date of the baby’s birth
- any other information that you may have, such as the
- stage the pregnancy had reached
If the hospital does not have a Bereavement Office, you could try contacting the General Office or the chaplain. If the hospital still has the relevant records for that year, the staff may be able to tell you if your baby was buried or cremated, and possibly the address of the cemetery or crematorium.
Alternatively, the staff may be able to give you the name of the funeral director who made the arrangements. If the funeral director is still in business and still has records from that time, his or her staff should be able to tell you the name of the cemetery or crematorium. You can then contact the cemetery or crematorium staff and ask them to carry out a search of their registers. However, hospitals don’t keep medical records of births indefinitely, and some hospital records may not contain enough detail to be helpful. If the hospital where the baby was born has closed, records may have been transferred to the nearest large hospital, or sometimes destroyed.
If neither the hospital nor the funeral director has a record of the cemetery or crematorium
You will need to contact local cemeteries and crematoria yourself. Start with those nearest to the hospital where your baby was stillborn or died. If you cannot find any record of your baby at the nearest cemetery or crematorium, the staff there may be able to suggest where else you could ask.
You may find the following website useful in finding cemeteries and crematoria in your area: www.iccm-uk.com
Some cemeteries and crematoria are run by the local council. The council may have a Bereavement Services Department, and the staff there may be able to help or advise you.
By law, anyone can inspect a burial register. However, cremation law only permits the inspection of cremation records at the discretion of the crematorium as there may be data protection issues. (This is because there may be information in the records about people who are still alive). If you are not able to see the cremation records yourself, the crematorium staff will search on your behalf if you provide the following information:
- the baby’s surname
- the date of the death or stillbirth
You may find it helpful to keep a record of your search, including a list of the places you have contacted and the names and contact details of the people you spoke to.
If you find the cemetery or crematorium
If the baby was buried
In many places, stillborn babies were buried in a shared grave with other babies. This is still the practice in some cemeteries. Shared graves are not usually marked, though they do have a plot number and can be located on a cemetery plan. Sometimes a baby was buried in a grave with an adult.
Finding the place where a baby is buried can be bittersweet, or it can be a relief. It can also feel upsetting, even if the baby has his or her own grave. Sometimes babies were buried in a less attractive part of a cemetery, and some graves may not have been well looked after.
If the baby was cremated
In the past, several babies were sometimes cremated together. This still happens when a hospital arranges funerals for very premature babies. Until recently, ashes were not usually offered to parents following a shared cremation: they were generally scattered or buried, often in a little used area of the crematorium gardens. The crematorium should have a record of where the ashes from a shared cremation were scattered or buried. However, there is unlikely to be a plaque or any formal recognition of the importance of these areas.
You can make an appointment to be shown the exact location of the grave, or the area where the ashes were scattered or buried. Most cemetery and crematoria staff are very helpful and will give you as much information and help as they can. Most cemeteries and crematoria can provide a certified extract from a burial or cremation register. If you decide to visit the place where your baby was cremated or buried, you may want to take photographs. However, you may find that there are restrictions on what can be placed on a grave, especially if it’s a shared grave. In a crematorium, there may be restrictions on what can be placed in an area where ashes from several babies were scattered or buried. The staff will tell you what is allowed. You may want to ask to have your baby’s name inscribed in the cemetery or crematorium memorial book or ask if you can plant a tree or trees in their memory. If this is not possible at the place where your baby is buried The Woodland Trust have memorial woodlands.