The Baby Lifeline UK Maternity Equipment Appeal
Message from Dame Judi Dench

It is with great pride that I announce Baby Lifeline's appeal to provide your local maternity services with identified and life saving equipment for the care of its pregnant women and their unborn and newborn babies.

Baby Lifeline is a charity that was born from personal tragedy in 1981 and has since raised over £8 million to provide an abundance of technology for use in maternity services, as well as for specialist training for its health care professionals.

As the birth rate increases in this country to approximately 670,000 a year, we still see around 8,500 babies dying around the time of birth and during the first year of life.

As medicine has advanced over the years to improve the care of pregnant women and their babies, more expertise has led to a far higher demand on funds needed for equipment and training. The burden on the NHS is therefore greater than ever before and our appeal is to complement the work already carried out.

Baby Lifeline works with hundreds of expert health professionals to ensure the best possible outcome from pregnancy and birth - caring for our future generations.

Please would you support this exciting appeal, which will provide the equipment requested from our maternity units, ranging from small hand held heart detectors to monitor an unborn baby's heart rate, to monitors and scanners, providing the best care in pregnancy and child birth.

However small your donation may be, please be assured that every penny given will make a huge difference to the appeal and indeed to mothers and babies.

I thank you in anticipation of your support.

My best wishes,

Dame Judi Dench

Vice President - Baby Lifeline

Message from Judy Ledger - CEO

We ask for your support for this very important fundraising campaign that will enormously support the care of hundreds of thousands of pregnant women and their unborn and newborn babies nationwide.

Baby Lifeline launched this appeal in response to so many requests received from UK NHS Trusts for their chosen and various types of equipment used for maternity care.

Equipment requests range in cost and purpose, from hand held dopplers (to monitor the unborn baby’s heart rate in community and hospital situations), to incubators, weighing scales, larger and more technological fetal monitors, and even scanners for both mothers and their unborn and newborn babies. The appeal is there for all areas of maternity care .i.e. in the community and hospital areas, and for maternity as well as neonatal units, and fundraising will be ongoing as the need for equipment is always there. As medicine advances so the burden on the NHS resource becomes greater.

Applications in writing from NHS Trust representatives have been made, and will be ongoing, outlining their equipment needed, the purpose and geographical, as well as clinical, benefits.

It is made clear to those applicants from the outset that fundraising needs to take place through grant making trusts and their community groups etc. In the present economic climate there are no guarantees, but any monies raised, are of course treated as restricted funds legally and spent as such. The appeal is attractive to community organisations and individuals as Baby Lifeline can order the equipment, arrange presentations and acknowledge the donations made.

Generous medical suppliers have pledged and given donations to the charity to cover some of the small direct administration costs, which means that funds raised can ensure the equipment purchase.

Thank you to all the fundraisers and donors to date, and thank you if you are considering support to such an important appeal.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for any further information.

Judy Ledger
Founder and Chief executive

judy@babylifeline.org.uk

Find out what your local maternity unit needs