On the 19th January, 2025, Hayley Wilkins and her partner Warren faced the worst nightmare any parents could imagine: their daughter, Sienna Elizabeth Rose, was stillborn at 40 weeks and 3 days. Hayley’s labour began with excitement, but within minutes, complications arose. She was rushed to a hospital in Estepona, where Sienna was delivered via emergency C-section. While Hayley was under anaesthesia, her lung collapsed, and she was placed in an induced coma. During this time, her family was informed of both Sienna’s passing and Hayley’s critical condition.
In the aftermath, Hayley and Warren were confronted with the harsh realities of Spain’s protocols for stillbirths. The hospital lacked a cuddle cot – a cooling device that allows grieving families to spend more time with their deceased babies. As a result, Sienna was taken to a funeral home just hours after her birth, located two hours away. Due to her medical condition, Hayley couldn’t leave the hospital immediately and had to discharge herself four days later to see her daughter. She held Sienna for just one hour – a moment she cherishes deeply.
Determined to not let Sienna’s memory be defined purely by her passing, Hayley, a professional social media manager, content creator and event organiser, turned her skills and talents to ensuring other families don’t have to endure similar hardships, launching the Sienna Elizabeth Rose Legacy campaign.
This initiative aims to provide hospitals with cuddle cots and memory boxes filled with the tools to help families create keepsakes, such as baby moulds, ink pads, and memory pieces. It seeks to raise funds to assist families with funeral costs and to offer free services, including professional photography and videography, to capture precious funeral moments. A volunteer network of professional photographers will also be available to document the first and last moments with the baby. Additionally, the campaign collects donated wedding dresses to create sleeping gowns for the babies. Looking ahead, it hopes to build a dedicated support team to offer counseling services and grief support to families. Fundraising events are being organized both in the UK and Spain to support these initiatives.
These fundraising efforts have included events like a luncheon in Marbella, and charity night at Monahan’s Bar in Sabinilas, with the campaign garnering significant support from the community, and attracting interest from abroad, including the US. Through these endeavours, Hayley hopes to honour Sienna’s memory and bring about meaningful change for grieving families in Spain.
For more information or to support the campaign, visit the official GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/supporting-families-in-spain-whos-babies-are-born-sleeping.
What is a cuddle cot?
A cuddle cot is a specially designed cooling device that allows families to spend more time with their deceased baby after a stillbirth or neonatal death. It’s a small, discreet system placed inside a bassinet or crib that gently cools the baby’s body, slowing the natural changes that occur after death.
By keeping the baby’s body preserved for a longer period — often up to a few days — a cuddle cot gives grieving families the precious chance to hold, cuddle, bathe, dress, and say goodbye to their baby at their own pace. This extended time can be profoundly important for emotional healing: it allows parents, siblings, and extended family to create memories, take photos, and begin processing the deep grief in a more personal and less rushed way.
Without a cuddle cot, families might have only a very short window with their baby, often feeling pressured by the natural deterioration that occurs. With it, the experience can be a little less traumatic, offering a moment of calm and connection in an otherwise devastating time.
