It is with great emotion that we wish our founder Emma McLeod a fond farewell.

As many of you know, over the past 8 and a half years the Stillbirth Foundation Australia has flourished under the tireless efforts and unwavering guidance of Emma.  As she takes her big step into a new career we wish to thank Emma for her passion, drive and commitment to the Stillbirth cause and for helping this charity to become the successful and well-established charity it is today.

Part of Emma’s legacy has been establishing the new phase the foundation is entering which began late last year with the launch of our new logo.  Over the coming weeks, we will also be launching our new website which will be the go-to destination for Stillparents, their family and friends.  Under Emma, the Stillbirth Foundation Australia has also provided the seed funding for the groundbreaking research into ways of testing for the early signs of stillbirth during pregnancy.  A project that we should all be enormously proud of.

In the spirit of what the foundation stands for, which is to make a real difference to the occurrence of stillbirth, this month saw us receive an extremely generous donation of $30,000 from ICAP.  It is only with donations like this that we can help fund our research projects which will ultimately make a difference to the stillbirth statistics.

Watch this space as our new CEO will be announced shortly…

It is with great pleasure that the Stillbirth Foundation granted $27, 688 in February to Professor Roger Smith of the Hunter Medical Research Institute. Smith’s study, ‘Is placental aging the key to predicting and preventing stillbirths?’, is aiming to develop a test that may predict the risk of stillbirth by examining markers of placental aging.

A placenta which is not functioning properly will not properly nourish a fetus. Thus, the development of a test which holds the potential to identify babies that are at risk of dying as a result of placental aging and subsequent growth restriction, and delivering them earlier to prevent stillbirth, is very exciting.

We are so proud to be funding research studies like this one which seek tangible ways to identify the causes of stillbirth and the means to prevent it. We look forward to keeping you updated with results as they come to light.

Please continue to support this study and studies like this one by donating now.

Melbourne, we’re finally coming to you!

Our first Mum Cha Lunch will be held on Wednesday 7th May, from 12pm to 3pm at the Red Emperor Restaurant in Southbank. We’ll be joined there by our fabulous and inspiring guest speaker, Carolyn Creswell, founder of Carman’s Fine Foods and Telstra Business Woman of the Year, 2012.

This is going to be a nice relaxed lunch for friends to come together, catch up and, importantly, raise funds for stillbirth research. We will have a raffle drawn towards the end of our luncheon and we are so pleased to announce that one of our amazing prizes is an incredibly luxurious night’s accommodation in a Victorian Suite at the The Hotel Windsor, Melbourne!

So, to all our Victorian friends (and all our interstate supporters who want to use this event as an excuse to take an impromptu sojourn in fabulous Melbourne!), come and join us with your friends for a delicious mid-week lunch. Together we can make this, our first Melbourne-based event, a success!

Tickets are $100 each and reserving your place is as simple as filling out this form and returning it to Michelle.

This year, we’ll again be holding our Annual Golf Day on Thursday, May 15th, 2014, at the beautiful Ryde-Parramatta Golf Course.

It’s so great to see so many of our Stilldads and their mates come along to our Golf Day each year but ladies don’t be deterred! In fact, we’d love to see more ladies out on course this year.

If you or someone you know would like to participate this year but are perhaps struggling to put together a team, then have no fear as we will put you and some other individuals together to form a team. You can register yourself or your team by submitting this form. Also, if you or your company are interested in being a sponsor this year or know of someone who would like to sponsor a hole, please view our Sponsorship Package.

As ever, if you have any questions, feel free to contact Michelle. Otherwise, we look forward to hearing from you!

We’re thrilled to say that we have already filled a third of our Gold Runner places for this year!

Whether they’re participating because they like to run or because they have a New Year’s resolution they want to keep, all our Gold and Individual runners are united by one main motivator: they are running for stillbirth. The City2Surf is always a challenge, it’s always an active way to be involved with your favourite charity, and most importantly, it’s always an opportunity to honour your baby or the baby of a friend by raising funds in their name to prevent other families from having to experience this tragedy.

Every year, our runners bring the issue of stillbirth to the fore by donning jerseys with our logo and their babies’ names on the front, right over their hearts. There’s still plenty of time to sign up and be a part of our amazing Gold Team. All we need from you is a $100 registration fee and a genuine dedication to raise $1,000 for our charity. In return, we will supply you with a spot on our Gold Team, a running singlet, a cap, and a complimentary post-event brekkie with your family on Bondi Beach.

Signing up to be a part of our Gold Team is as easy as clicking here and submitting the form. Alternatively, if you would still like to be involved as an individual, you can click here and you’ll be able to select Stillbirth Foundation as your nominated charity once you’ve submitted your information.

Nothing is more precious and priceless than the images you have of your stillborn baby. The lovely Samantha Ricci knows this and, from your photographs, she can recreate an image you have of your baby in coloured pencil which you can hold onto as another special keepsake.

To view her beautiful work and inquire about how much it will cost, click here. You can also click here to view testimonies of her work on Facebook from other families who have utilised her services including many of our wonderful supporters.