The couple who spent more than 15 days with their stillborn child to 'say goodbye'

Pre-eclampsia is a serious condition which severely affects two in every 100 pregnant women

Lynsey and Mark Bell in hospital with their stillborn son Rory (Courtesy of Lynsey Bell)

A heartbroken couple spent more than 15 days with their stillborn son, cuddling his dead body and taking photographs for a family album to cope with their grief.

Just after Lynsey Bell had gone into labour having been induced after a difficult pregnancy, doctors told her that her fourth child would not be born alive.

Ms Bell, 32, suffered from pre-eclampsia, a serious high blood pressure condition which severely affects two in every 100 pregnant women, in her first three pregnancies.

But this time the condition was so serious her placenta had detached from her womb.

Further complications followed: a hemorrhage meant Ms Bell had to be put under general anaesthetic for two days, she underwent an emergency hysterectomy.

The baby, who the couple had named Rory, was removed by caesarian section.

“The doctors told us if our situation had happened 10 years ago I wouldn’t have made it either, so thank goodness for medical advances,” Ms Bell wrote on her public Facebook page created in memory of her son.

Lynsey and Mark Bell (Courtesy of Lynsey Bell)

Stillbirth is defined as when a baby dies after 24 weeks of gestation.

There were more than 3,200 instances of stillbirth in this country in 2013, and more than 10 babies are stillborn every day in the UK, according to miscarriage charity Tommy’s.

When she came round in hospital after the traumatic incident in August 2014, Ms Bell’s husband Mark Bell showed her a photograph of her stillborn son lying next to her while she was in a coma.

Ms Bell in a coma with her stillborn son Rory (Courtesy of Lynsey Bell)

“We put Rory in your arms and took a photo … We thought it might be the only photo of the two of you together we’d ever have,” said Mr Bell, according to the Mirror.

While Ms Bell was recovering in hospital, she said the couple would spend around 20 minutes a day “bonding” with their dead son, who was kept in the hospital’s mortuary unit.

“Rory was my son. I needed to care for him, I needed to change his nappy and get to know him. I owed him that,” she told the Mirror.

The couple from Newcastle spent more than two weeks saying goodbye to their stillborn son.

And before his funeral, they took him home to his grandparents’ house, where they “did everything we would have done during his first year,” such as cuddling him in bed, reading him stories and bathing him.

The family say they are open with their other three young children about their stillborn brother.

Ms Bell is also campaigning to raise money for a child named Samuel with cerebral palsy.

While the majority of stillbirths occur in developing countries, among 35 wealthy nations the UK is only ranked 21st for stillbirth prevention, with mothers in Iceland half as likely to experience it.