Portsmouth couple open up on 'taboo' subject of stillbirth and look to help other grieving parents after their 'beautiful' boy was born sleeping at QA Hospital's Nightingale Suite

In their darkest moments something as simple as a coffee brought some respite for Emily and Ben Gamman as they awaited the birth of their son Austin.

Situated in the Nightingale Bereavement Suite at Queens Alexandra Hospital in Cosham, the couple from Paulsgrove already knew that this would be their one chance to meet their baby boy. Austin was born sleeping on March 6 at 28 weeks, weighing 2lb and 8oz. Emily describes him as “beautiful”.

It was only the week before that they found out that Austin was very poorly and would not survive. Despite their devastation they immediately looked to find ways in which they could help people in a similar situation to them.

Emily, 29, said: “Originally when we were planning his funeral, instead of flowers, we asked people to donate money to a charity called 4Louis. They provide the hospital with memory boxes. In those you can do hand and footprints and clay hand and foot prints. There are two teddy bears, Austin had one and I had one and just before he was cremated we switched so he had my scent and I had his.

“We raised £2,000 which was amazing and I think that provides around 30 to 40 memory boxes for families which is really nice.”

However, as time went on the couple wanted to find ways that they could help local people and their minds drifted back to the solace they found in a treat or coffee at the Costa in the hospital.

Emily said: “The more we thought about it, we wanted to do something for local families that are going through stillbirth at QA hospital. When we were there my husband spent so much on Costa, just to be able to step away from that room and take a break and have a nice coffee.

“The one thing I remember him saying was it would be so nice if there was a voucher that we could use and not worry about how much the round would cost us.

“I thought that would be a nice touch. As time went on I decided to set up a GoFundMe to raise money to buy Costa gift cards for the Nightingale Suite at QA.”

Emily has set up a Facebook page called Austin’s Angels where she hopes to continue raising funds to continuously provide vouchers to the hospital.

“I just want to give families that bit of space away from the bereavement suite, a time where they can take five and get themselves a coffee, cake or panini without having to worry about the cost,” she said. “It can be expensive, especially if you are in the hospital for a couple of days. I don't want this to last a month and fizzle out, I want this to help all families.”

So far the couple have raised over a £1,000 and they have hand delivered the first 10 vouchers to Emily’s “amazing” bereavement midwife at the maternity ward.

The fundraising has also provided Emily with an opportunity to raise awareness of stillbirths, a subject that can be taboo to talk about. Between May 2025 and May 2026 there were 35 births in the Nightingale Suite at Queen Alexandra Hospital run by Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust.

Tommy’s, a UK charity that researches the causes and prevention of pregnancy complications, miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth, states that around one in every 250 pregnancies ended in stillbirth in 2022. That is approximately eight babies being stillborn every day.

Emily said: “Stillbirth isn't spoken about a lot. My mum had a still born. I know that she struggled to talk about it and I could never understand why and it’s because it is such a taboo subject, people would feel really awkward around you.

“The more I have spoken about my situation the more people have come forward and been like ‘I have had one as well’ or ‘I had a really late miscarriage’. You don’t realise how many people have been through it until you start opening up and then people feel like they can open up as well. I have met so many people just in the last three months who have opened up and said they have been through it as well.

“I don’t want people to feel awkward talking about it or feel like they can’t talk about or mention Austin. We shouldn't feel awkward talking about our babies just because they are not here.”

Through the incredibly difficult time that Emily and Ben faced, Emily was thankful for the care and support that the staff at the Nightingale Suite provided.

She said: “They have been amazing, my bereavement midwife has been fantastic. The lady who delivered Austin was phenomenal, she just made it as normal as possible for me. I had a beautiful birth and that was thanks to her. I can’t fault how good they have been to us.”

Moving forwards Emily is looking at other ways to help raise money for the Costa gift vouchers including approaching local businesses to donate items for online raffles.

She said: “We as a community should come together to help our local people that are going through the darkest days of their lives, just to let them know we are thinking of them. Just something as simple as a Costa voucher will let them know that people are thinking of them and they are not alone.”

To donate to Emily’s GoFundMe page visit: https://www.gofundme.com/f/comfort-for-bereaved-parents-costa-gift-cards-for-our-loca