Xanthe

All About Xanthe

Xanthe, our beautiful and deeply loved baby daughter, was born on 4th April 2007 at 1.25am but devastatingly she was born dead. The consultant obstretician estimates (from physical indictators) that Xanthe died between 8 and 12 hours before she was born, so cruelly close to when labour started: we so nearly had our daughter alive and here with us. We planned for Xanthe and deeply wanted her.

                                                                                    Xanthe's Portrait by Nina Barry

Emma was 40 weeks and 4 days pregnant when she went into labour with Xanthe. Emma had a "low risk" good second pregnancy and was consequently booked for a home birth. Throughout the pregnancy there were no signs at all that anything was wrong with Xanthe: there was no bleeding in pregnancy, Emma had a good blood pressure rate, Xanthe had a good heart rate, the scans all showed Xanthe to be doing well, there was no sudden reduction in Xanthe's movements and there were no other signs or symptoms that concerned Emma, Alex, the midwives or GPs.


Emma did everything that we had read to be beneficial when pregnant with Xanthe: she ate a healthy organic diet; took specially formulated multi-vitamins with folic acid ; avoided smokey places; drunk no alcohol; drunk no caffeine (just consumed a tiny bit in the occassional bit of G&B chocolate); used no harsh chemicals in the home or on herself (no hair dye etc) etc. Anything that we had read may be harmful to a baby Emma refrained from doing in pre-conception and pregnancy (and so did Alex, to keep her company). We were so cautious, "over cautious" some people thought. We just wanted our baby so much. As our Doctor said it is important to be healthy and cautious during pregnancy and by doing these things we lower our chances of anything going wrong but we can not complete stop the chance of something going wrong.


Extensive tests and examinations have been carried out on Emma, Emma's blood, Xanthe, Xanthe's blood, Xanthe's placenta and the umbilical cord.  It is horrifying to realise that they are not able to tell us why Xanthe died. Yet in over 50% of stillbirths the cause is not known (please see the Stillbirth section to read more) and they have little idea what they could have done to have prevented the stillbirth. We were deeply distressed to realise that obstetrics has no answer, even though 1 in every 200 pregnancies end in stillbirth.  Even more distressingly so little research is being done in the field of unexplained stillbirth. 

A variety of studies identify an association between stillbirth and various factors such as more than the recommended alcohol consumption; stillbirth and high caffeine intake (1) ; stillbirth and socio-economic deprivation (2) ; stillbirth and smoking (3) ; stillbirth and maternal obesity (4) and stillbirth and a previous caesarean birth (5) . This means that there is a higher prevalence of stillbirths in mothers who the associating factor applies to, but it is still often a very small increased risk.  It does not of course show a cause and it's effect, also other scientists may well dispute these studies claims. None of these associations are relevant in Xanthe's situation anyway. Some recent studies looking at Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (LQTS) has linked this type of death of an apparently healthy adult to both cot death and unexplained full-term stillbirth. There is some suggestion that all these situations are related to electro-magnetic waves in the heart. Alex & Emma have recently had ECGs but these have ruled out this possibility too. We were months after Xanthe's stillbirth told that the umbilical cord was not quite coiled as normal and that there is some association between over or under coiling and stillbirth, this is obviously not a cause but an indicator of where there may have been problems.

So we are left without our daughter and yet with no full understanding of why she is not here with us, as she should be. This has been so hard for us to accept. It was so hard for us to not blame ourselves (no matter how many times the medics say that we took exceptional care and that there was nothing we could have done to have saved Xanthe) because we know that with just a small twist of fate, or so it seems, she would be .
alive.


There are so many "what ifs. If Xanthe had been breech, she'd have been delivered by caesarean section long before she died and be alive. If Emma had experienced a pregnancy complication she may have been induced before and again Xanthe would be here with us. If Emma had gone into labour 24 hours earlier Xanthe would also be alive. Yet it is set in stone that Xanthe is dead and nothing can change this now.


Xanthe was 8Ib 3oz (the same as her brother was at birth). She was beautiful with golden chestnut coloured hair, a tiny snub nose, a long elegant mouth, long and slender hands, beautiful large shapely feet, she was tall and slim. She should have been alive, she should be here with us now. We held our little girl for many hours. We have 3 precious photographs of Xanthe, some locks of her golden hair and her hand and foot prints . Midwifes collect these momentoes for all parents whose babies have died. We were taken to an empty room, in an empty ward where there were no sounds of babies crying. We spent many hours there with Xanthe, holding our daughter. This time was very, very important to us and hopefully in years to come, when the shock and devastation has lessened, we will be able to remember this precious time we spent with our daughter. Afterwards we were discharged alone and shown out through the back door (to avoid the maternity ward).


We bonded with Xanthe over 9 months. We talked and sung to Xanthe each day, we felt her move through the days each day, saw her kicking, sucking her thumb and wriggling on the ultrasound scans, attended all ante-natal appointments, attended a birthing preparation group, Emma knitted a blanket for Xanthe, Xanthe's granny crocheted her a yellow blanket, Emma wrote her a daily pregnancy diary and some short stories for her to read when she was older. We waited for her to come so excitedly.


Everything was ready for Xanthe: her moses basket was made up; there was a pile of new soft organic baby clothes for her to wear which Emma had tied a ribbon around; the blankets Emma and Xanthe's Granny made were ready and ironed; the family photo album we'd been using had pages left empty to be filled with pictures of Xanthe; the tray of herbal and black teas and cookies was layed out for the homebirth midwives; the basket of things to help Emma through a natural labour was filled; our son was at his grandparents house for the evening and we were filled with such joy and such hope, after nine long months she was finally on her way (we thought).


We have made this site in honour of our beautiful Xanthe's memory. We have done a number of other things in Xanthe's memory too (see Xanthe's memorials section). We will continue to do so over our life times; this is deeply important to us. We hope that you will read those parts of this website which you feel able to read (although we fully understand some of you will not wish to do so) to understand our sadness but also to help us remember our daughter and affirm her wonderful, but brief, little life.


Xanthe is buried in a green burial site where we (and Emma's parents) will one day be buried beside her. We have planted yellow wild flowers over her grave. A tree is being planted for her there this winter. It is peaceful meadow land with a fast flowing river at the far end and is surrounded by horses and sheep in the fields nearby.

References

1) Aarhus University Hospital study, Denmark

2) Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Health Report

3) Institute of child Health & Great Ormond Street & Homerton Hospitals

4) Department of obstetrics & Gyn., Imperial College School of Medicine

5) Cambridge University Team