Gaye Henson

I am a Consultant Obstetrician working at the Whittington Hospital in London and have been a consultant since 1988.

I trained at St Thomas’ Hospital in London and knew from when I was a medical student that I wanted to specialise in Obstetrics. My areas of specialist training have been around labour and delivery, monitoring of a baby’s health before and during labour by using heart rate tracings and also in fetal medicine and the detection of abnormalities by using ultrasound scans. This inevitably has brought me into contact on a regular basis with parents who have suffered complications in a pregnancy and had miscarriages, stillbirths and deaths early on in a baby’s life. This has been one of the most challenging and, at the same time, the most deeply rewarding areas of my work. Over the years I have learnt so much from parents and hope that what I have gained has helped me in supporting other parents and their families.

I have had the privilege to give professional advice as an advisor to Sands and participate in the development of the Sands Guidelines for Professionals written by Nancy Kohner, Alix Henley and Judith Schott and also in other publications such as ‘When a Baby Dies’ and feel I have gained much more than I have contributed.

One of my roles as a Consultant Obstetrician is to teach and train students and junior doctors and it is so important that they have teaching regarding perinatal bereavement and what this means to parents and families. The study days organised by Sands are terrific ways of teaching doctors and midwives about this.

I am not a bereaved parent but I hope that I can use my professional knowledge and practical experience in supporting the aims of Sands and be able to share in the vision to reduce the numbers of babies who die before or shortly after birth. I feel very honoured to have been appointed as a trustee and am fully committed to contributing in whatever way I can.