Still life

These are fascinating stories of the courage of ordinary women whose babies died before, during or shortly after birth. Before the 1980s, stillborn babies were rarely treated with respect. Doctors, nurses, family and friends all maintained a conspiracy of silence around the mother while the baby's existence was seldom acknowledged. Lois Tonkin encourages these women to reveal the grief forbidden them by an insensitive and ill-informed medical establishment and, indeed the community at large.