Yvette Cooper, the UK health secretary, has apologised for the practice of removing stillborn babies from their mothers in hospital and burying them in communal graves, calling the suffering caused to parents "profound" and describing their experience as "unthinkable pain". The practice is reported to have occurred between the 1930s and the 1980s.
Campaigners, including a woman from the Wirral and others who have long sought recognition and answers, prompted the government response. Many parents spent decades without knowing where their babies had been buried after being separated from them following delivery in hospital.
The apology acknowledges the lasting emotional harm caused by the removal and communal burial of stillborn infants and the distress of families left without information about final resting places. Campaigners had urged authorities to recognise those harms and to provide clarity and support to affected families.
The health secretary's statement comes after sustained public attention on historical hospital practices surrounding stillbirths. It signals official recognition of past actions and their impact on bereaved parents, although details about any further steps or remedies were not outlined in the announcement.
The issue highlights historical medical and institutional practices around childbirth and bereavement that have since changed, and it has prompted renewed public and political discussion about how to address the consequences for families who were affected over several decades.
Campaigners said their efforts were instrumental in securing the acknowledgement by ministers, and they continue to press for full transparency about past practices and the whereabouts of those buried in communal graves.