A Newark football tournament is raising money for a refrigerated cot allowing bereaved parents to spend more time with babies which are lost through stillbirth or miscarriage.
Notts TV reported in March how Newark mum Jane Mann is raising £1,600 to fund the cot, a Moses-like basket complete with a cooling system, which enables families to take home their babies as part of the grieving process.
Jane, 29, has Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), a condition which affects one in ten women and reduces fertility – she has lost eight babies through miscarriage, her latest loss being a little boy in January.
Jane has so far raised £265 of the total and the five-a-side tournament, organised by Matthew Ash, will go towards the cot which will be kept at the Co-op Funeral Directors, Beacon Hill Road, Newark.
It will give families the chance to spend up to three days with their babies before they go to a morgue.
Similar cots are already used by some hospitals to help support families, including the Queen’s Medical Centre and Nottingham City Hospital.
Jane said: “I’m really pleased. I’m so glad others feel as passionate about it as I do and I am over the moon that others are wanting to help.”
The ‘Pheonix Cuddle Cot’ will be named after Jane’s sixth miscarried child, baby boy Pheonix, who died in October 2015. Jane, 29, has two living children, Brandon, ten, and Freya, two.
The tournament will be held on July 1 at the Magnus Academy and will also raise money for a child cancer patient and Cash for Kids, a charity for disadvantaged and disabled children.
Entry is £5 per-player and there will be an under 14s tournament in the morning and an adult competition in the afternoon; and Matthew hopes to raise £1,000.
Matthew, 32, a warehouse worker from Newark, organised the tournament for the first time last year for his friend David James Tatton’s son, Lucas, who has a Wilms’ tumour, a form of cancer, to go to Disney World.
He said the tournament proved so successful, he organised a second in Stoke-on-Trent which raised £3,500, and he and Lucas’ parents decided to organise yearly tournaments off the back of the previous two for ill children.
This summer’s event will also raise money to pay for Stoke girl and cancer patient Dakota-Marie Cole-Smith, three, so she can see specialist doctors in America.
Matthew was inspired by his children to get into charity work after they raised money at school.
“They showed me what a massive difference we can individually make, to see how much all my children rallied around to help was amazing,” he said.
Local restaurant the Mint Leaf will supply food and cakes will be on offer, while kids can enjoy entertainment including bouncy castles.
