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We are here to support any person affected by the death of a baby. We offer one-to-one befriending, telephone support and advice as well as regular group support meetings.


We work with people in Bedfordshire and surrounding areas and all of our services are provided free of charge by local volunteers - Beds SANDS receives no funding other than by donation.

Our Priority Projects

You may recall from recent Newsletters (and this blog) that Beds SANDS has been seeking your views in order to identify a number of priority initiatives (including one 'aspirational' project) for the next 12-18 months.

The 'feedback' from Beds SANDS members via letter, email and the ‘voting widget’ that was on this blog has been really helpful both in identifying a 'long list' of potential ideas and then choosing a smaller number to take forward.

After considering all the great ideas and ‘feedback’, the projects that Beds SANDS will focus on are as follows:

1) Maintaining the Support Group and other befriender services.

This is and always will be at the heart of what we do.

2) Supplying good quality memory boxes to Bedfordshire hospitals.

We are already in the process of ordering some excellent boxes from national SANDS.

3) Helping to furnish the bereavement suites in the county's hospitals.

We have already donated a crib and bedding to the Luton and Dunstable General Hospital – see posts below for more

details and pictures.

4) Producing a Beds SANDS ‘business card’ for health professionals.

It is intended that these cards would include a little information about SANDS in general and Beds SANDS in particular,

including contact details. The cards would be supplied to midwives and others to give to people who may need support

from SANDS.

5) Establishing a SANDS Memorial Garden within the county.

Clearly, this is a major, ‘aspirational’ project and we will need a lot of assistance from members if we are to make this a

reality.

Each of the priority projects within our portfolio is significant and very worthwhile, but the establishment of a Memorial Garden is a particularly big venture.

If you are interested in helping to progress and/or fundraise for the proposed memorial garden, then it would be really good to hear from you. Similarly, if you are aware of a venue, (preferably in central Bedfordshire) that might be suitable, then please get in touch ...

Thank you,

April Service at the Chapel, Bedford Hospital, South Wing

This Service will take place at 3.00pm on Sunday 11th April and is open to anyone who has been affected by the loss of a baby at any stage of pregnancy and after birth.
If you would like to do a reading at the service or would like to have someone else do a reading on your behalf, then please get in touch.
In order to prepare the order of service in good time, it is requested that you should send the details of any reading and dedications to bedfordshiresands@yahoo.co.uk before Wednesday 10th March 2010.

Seeing and holding your baby ** Petition Update **

Many of us will be aware that national SANDS had organised a petition as part of the process of trying to lobby the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) to take a more appropriate and less literal interpretation to the guidance relating to this very personal and sensitive issue.

The good news is that SANDS' intervention has led to NICE agreeing to clarify the intended meaning of the relevant piece of guidance.

More details can be found here.