When her daughter Cara died at just 28 days old, Miranda Garden would have given anything to spend just a few more hours with her baby before she had to say goodbye.
And now, Mrs Garden has become involved in fundraising campaign to buy special cots to allow other grieving parents in the Highlands and Argyll to do just that.
Angel Wings, a charity set up to support parents whose children have died, is aiming to raise a total of £3,200 for two “cuddle cots” for the Lochaber and Oban areas.
One would be kept at the Belford Hospital in Fort William and the other would be placed with a funeral director in the Lochaber town so families could borrow it and take it home.
And Mrs Garden 41, of Onich, who has two other children, Morgan, 11, and two-year-old Trinity, is helping to raise awareness of the appeal.
She explained that her daughter Cara was just 1lb 6oz when she was born more than 10 weeks early at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness in October 2011.
Miss Garden said: “She was just a tiny person, but she came out kicking and screaming and everyone was surprised how well she was.
“They put her in an incubator, but she developed NEC (necrotising enterocolitis) – a serious illness in which tissues in the intestine become inflamed.
“Raigmore didn’t have the capability to deal with the problem so she was flown to Aberdeen, but it was too advanced. They couldn’t save her so she was only with us for 28 days.”
She said Morgan had desperately wanted a little brother or sister and was ecstatic when Cara was born.
However, only her parents were allowed to hold her so all Morgan could do was touch her in the incubator or when she was being held by her mum or dad.
Miss Garden said: “Morgan was devastated that he was never able to cuddle her so the cuddle cot would have been perfect for us.
“It would have given him the time with her that he didn’t have and, even after she’d died, he would have been able to hold her and have a cuddle.”
A cuddle cot is a moses basket containing a cooling system to keep the baby’s body cool, enabling families to spend more time with them before the funeral.
They can be used for babies that are stillborn and for neonatal and cot deaths.
So far, the charity has provided five cots across Scotland at hospitals in Wick, Kirkwall and Glasgow and funeral directors in Perth and Edinburgh.
It is also fundraising for cots for the Badenoch and Strathspey and Inverness-shire and Moray areas.
Miss Garden said: “These cots give families the only precious time they will ever have to make memories with their baby.”
She added that the Lochaber cots would be in memory of local babies and children from Fort William and Oban.
And she is urging people to support the appeal at www.gofundme.com/fortwilliam
