Woman's miscarriage and stillbirth prompt 900km walk to raise awareness and money for cuddle cots

Warning: This story contains information and images relating to miscarriage and stillbirth.

Sasha Barton was 16 weeks pregnant in July 2025, when she was told her unborn son Jack had a chromosomal condition that wasn't compatible with life.

It was the second time she lost a baby.

"It was utterly devastating — I can't even explain how hard it hit me to find out," she said.

"I was very angry; it was a lot of 'it's not fair', like, why again?"

Seven years earlier, in 2018, the Narrandera resident gave birth to a stillbirth daughter, Amelia, who, at 38 weeks, died from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in utero.

While she gave birth two healthy girls, one before Amelia and another between Amelia and Jack, the anxiety never left her.

Her father Matt Barton said he felt helpless as he watched her struggle through the losses.

He decided to find a practical way to support her, and others in similar situations.

Walking for a cause 

The 53-year-old is walking 900 kilometres from his home in Narrandera in south-western NSW to Flinders Hospital in Adelaide where Amelia was born to honour his grandchildren and raise money for Bears of Hope — a non-for-profit charity that provides pregnancy and infant loss support to families.

"At the time I really wanted to help but there wasn't really anything I could do … this walk just seemed the right thing to do," he said.

It was a gesture that initially took Ms Barton by surprise.

"It wasn't something I expected, but [I was] also very touched, because I think this is his way of showing his love and him standing by me," she said.

Mr Barton started his walk in October but due to emergency surgery to remove kidney stones, he was only able to walk 300km.

He plans to resume the challenge before the end of the year.

His goal is to raise $6,500 to purchase a cuddle cot for the charity — a temperature-controlled cot that allows families to have more time with their baby.

Ms Barton had access to a cuddle cot during Amelia's birth at Flinders Hospital and Jack's at Wagga Base Hospital after she made the move to Narrandera.

She said the use of cuddle cots for both of her children after they died gave her more time.

"It [cuddle cot] helped quite a lot, it just gives you that time to say goodbye, it doesn't feel rushed or forced."

Demand demonstrates concern 

Co-founder and CEO of Bears of Hope Amanda Bowles said while the charity was one of the biggest distributors of cuddle cots in the country and distributed more than 8,500 bears and keepsakes in the last financial year — it highlighted an unfortunate truth.

 "The numbers are really devastating for how many families are facing loss every single day in Australia," she said.

"Some of the larger tertiary hospitals are needing to access multiple cots at any given time.

"That's certainly a large amount of families that we're reaching, but definitely not even close for the amount of miscarriages that families would be experiencing [in Australia]."

According to the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, stillbirths affect six families every day and for one in three stillbirths, the cause is unknown.

The rate of stillbirths has remained unchanged in the past two decades.

The department also found the rate of stillbirths was higher for women who were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or living in rural and remote Australia.

These statistics continue to motivate the Barton family.

"I think that's been one thing that's been so beautiful with what my Dad's doing is the amount of conversations I've had with friends, people that I've known and spoken to that before they knew my story, I didn't realise that they'd been through it too,"  Ms Barton said.

"It's not something that people often talk about.

"It is empowering to take the pain and the fear and all the negativity and to be able to talk about it in a way that hopefully makes other people feel less alone."