A bereaved young mother from Liverpool has launched a project to help other parents who have also lost babies. Millie Wylie, 23, set up Lenny’s Love in June 2022 to provide comfort bags to women, baby loss yoga, baby loss retreats and counselling and has already raised over £3,000 — helping many parents in the process.
To donate to the project visit the Lenny’s Love GoFundMe Page
Mother of two, Millie, lost her third child, Lenny, on September 16th 2021 due to a late missed miscarriage four months into pregnancy. Any mother’s worst nightmare, Millie embarked upon a long, difficult road of grieving — before making the decision to reach out to other parents.
Millie said: “It’s the worst news you could ever get. I’ve been through some deeply traumatic times in my life but nothing compares to being told there’s no longer a heartbeat and your unborn child is dead. Then there was the trauma of having to give birth to his lifeless body — it’s something I’ll never get over and I am still suffering from the horrific ordeal.”
To donate to the project visit the Lenny’s Love GoFundMe Page
Looking back on the tragic events, one thing that stuck with Millie was the fact that she had to pack a bag to go to the hospital — only to return home with no baby. Thinking about this, she set about creating comfort bags for other mothers — including clothing, sanitary products, a hair products, a poem, a memorial gift, knitted butterflies to be exchanged between mother and child and a support contact sheet.
To donate to the project visit the Lenny’s Love GoFundMe Page
Millie began distributing the self-funded comfort bags to The Women’s Hospital in Liverpool and received great feedback from the hospital. Realising the power of what she was doing, she then decided to raise money in order to distribute them to as many bereaved women as possible — whilst also working on developing the project.
To donate to the project visit the Lenny’s Love GoFundMe Page
Millie explained: “The comfort bags are only a small gesture and nothing will take away the pain of losing a baby but they have been really well received. We’ve raised over £3,000 so far through the GoFundMe page and various events and we are currently distributing the comfort bags to 40+ women per week but we’ve also started to provide other services.”
To donate to the project visit the Lenny’s Love GoFundMe Page
Lenny’s Love has been co-ordinating baby loss yoga sessions for bereaved parents at Planet Yoga and the project is in talks to offer baby loss retreats along with funded private counselling sessions. The long term plan is to register as an official charity in order to apply for funding and help bereaved parents nationally.
Millie said: “Losing a baby is one of the most harrowing things you can go through and there’s no timescale on grief. It’s a really long, hard road and sometimes it’s difficult to know where to turn. Some people have no access to counselling or support and can be very lonely in their suffering so the idea of Lenny’s Love is to work with the hospitals to bridge that gap and help parents on their journey through grief.”
To donate to the project visit the Lenny’s Love GoFundMe Page
Lenny’s Love has a GoFundMe Page — with all donations going towards comfort bags for women, baby loss yoga and baby loss retreats and counselling in the future. Anyone wanting to contact directly to offer any support to the initiative can do so via the Facebook page.
To donate to the project visit the Lenny’s Love GoFundMe Page
To follow the project follow Lenny’s Love on Facebook
