“I had to go into the hospital and give birth to my child knowing that he was asleep, he wasn’t going to wake up.”

Those were the tragic words of Lauren Derry, who on July 4, 2020, gave birth to her son Brucie.

But this wasn’t a routine birth, Lauren had unfortunately been told that her first child would be birthed stillborn.

The NHS defines any baby born dead after 24 weeks as stillborn. This sobering fact is exactly what faced the then-20-year-old.

“I felt like there was a lot of shame and that I failed,” said Lauren.

“The one thing my body was supposed to do it failed at, I felt like I failed my partner and my family, who all knew I was having a baby by this point.

“It takes a lot to realise you’re not going to bring this little life into the world to love - I still went through all the changes to my body that a normal pregnant woman would go through - but without the baby.”

The Office for National Statistics reported that there were 4.4 deaths per 1000 babies in Wales as a result of stillbirths - higher than the corresponding statistic in England.

This ultimately means that around one in 200 pregnancies end in a stillbirth, a number that sees the issue affecting many across the nation.

This widespread nature of stillbirths, coupled with Lauren’s lessons from baby loss, has led to the now 22-year-old’s current initiative.

The Brecon-local has made ornaments of baby footprints and hidden them around the town centre in honour of national baby-loss awareness week(October 9 - October 15) and will also be giving them out for free at St David’s Church during the week.

She hopes people will find the clay feet and start the conversation on what more can be done for people who face neonatal fatalities.

But delving deeper, it has also allowed Lauren to thrive and overcome her post-childbirth trauma.

“It’s like a coping mechanism for me, I’m trying to turn a bad situation into something good, and - I’ve had a lot of people say they want the clay ornaments.

“I actually made them for myself at first, but I just thought they’d help people deal with it, I noticed that a lot of things for baby loss are expensive, I’d have loved it if someone gave me something like this,” said Lauren.

The 22-year-old is now aiming to inspire anyone who has suffered a neonatal death to challenge the preconceptions regarding baby loss - and truly change the conversation.

Lauren said: “I hope this will help challenge the conversation, it’s good to make people say their baby’s names, and I think this is a really good way to get people doing that.

“At least for me, it was an excuse to keep saying his name.”

After everything, Lauren is still looking on the brighter side.

She is a mother, not only to Brucie, but to his younger sister Delilah, who is now 17 months old, and even holds a celebration of life day every year on July 4, to commemorate the birth of her late son.

Now, as we head into national baby loss awareness week, she can even look at the glimmers of light in her own tragedy.

Lauren said: “I was lucky enough to have gotten to meet my son, not everyone gets the chance.”