Quintin Jardine's blog

Those who have read the dedication of one of my books know that when I was two years old, my mother had a stillbirth, a boy, my brother, whose existence, by which I mean his time alive in the womb, was basically denied by the system.

Things may have changed since then, but in 1948, stillbirths were recorded in a closed register. It was the same within my small family. I had no knowledge of the event until I was seven or eight when my dad let something slip while talking to an acquaintance, in my presence. A few years passed before I asked him about it. When I did, he told me, but in the briefest of terms.

It ate away at me but I didn’t follow it up until I was in middle age when a reader told me that the stillbirth register was in fact accessible, on request. I now have a copy of my brother’s non-birth certificate. I carry a piece of him in my heart and the older I grow the more I feel that I am living his life for him.

I am not going into the circumstances, for all I have are third party stories. However what did anger me when I saw the certificate, and still does, beyond mere anger indeed, is the fact that the attending obstetrician was allowed by the system to certify the event, to attribute its cause, and to enter it into the register without counter signature, or any independent endorsement.

‘Feeble’ was one of the words he used. I weighed ten and a half pounds at birth; you may understand why I might need some persuasion of that!

I hope that the stillbirth certification system has been changed at some point in the 75 year existence of the NHS. Finally, I intend to find out. If it hasn’t, the Holyrood Health Secretary will be hearing from me.