After Michelle’s son Tom, 4, was killed, she began a life-saving mission
By Dilvin Yasa
The thought of outliving your child is every parent’s nightmare, yet it’s the reality for many Australians. According to statistics from the Queensland Family and Child Commission, there were 1605 child deaths across Australia in 2022 with 1171 of these attributable to disease. These figures, of course, don’t include losing a baby in utero, or an adult child.
Regardless of age, processing such grief is extraordinarily difficult for mothers. Amanda Ferguson, host of the podcast Psych for Life with Dr Amanda Ferguson, says research shows that when people suffer major tragedies they need to tap into a broader sense of meaning that will help them make sense of it. “Doing something positive can bring this, as well as a sense of agency, in a situation where a mother is otherwise powerless,” she says.
Here we speak with three women who have transformed their anguish into a vehicle that serves the wider community.
“It gave me the sense of purpose I needed”: Michelle McLaughlin, 53
“We left for our Central Coast [NSW] holiday rental in 2013 thinking it would be just another classic Australian summer break. It had been a busy year; I had three children under six and was working as a nurse, so we were thrilled to find a house just 250 metres from the beach.
I couldn’t have anticipated that the traffic would overflow into adjacent streets, or that my four-year-old, Tom – unfamiliar with the lack of a regular kerb, gutter and visible footpath – wouldn’t be able to differentiate between a safe place and the road. All it took was a split second; the driver didn’t have time to brake.
Michelle McLaughlin started a not-for-profit targeting child road trauma in busy areas, including holiday towns, following the death of her son, Tom.
The grief in the aftermath of Tom’s death was debilitating. Every day I’d wonder how I was going to be able to go on, having witnessed the terrible crash which took my child from me forever. As Easter neared, however, I started thinking about how this could happen to any other family holidaying in these hamlets, and what a difference a reduction in speed limits in these areas could make.
This moment of clarity – to share my story in the hope that it might make a difference to the broader community by reducing child pedestrian fatalities and serious injuries – gave me the sense of purpose I needed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Sadly, road trauma is the leading killer of children between the ages of one and 14 in Australia.
Little Blue Dinosaur Foundation was launched in November 2014, campaigning to get local, state and federal governments to step up community education around child road safety and to reduce speed limits in pedestrian areas where there are lots of young children. In many cases, the default speed limit in those areas is 50km/h. But a significant percentage of people die if they’re hit at that speed, so we’d like to see the limit reduced to 30km/h or 40km/h.
Parents must also be informed that kids under 10 have cognitive and physical limitations that mean they need to have their hand held, so increasing signage with themes like ‘Hold my hand’ or ‘Slow down, kids around’ is a big part of what we do. To date, we’ve partnered with 82 local councils to install our colourful signage, and I’m eager to see these visual reminders rolled out across Australia.
When your child dies, you never stop thinking about how you can bring them back. It’s impossible, of course, but the work I do with Little Blue Dinosaur Foundation – and the use of Tom’s drawing as our logo – keeps him by my side. If I can stop just one other family from feeling the sadness I carry, then all this campaigning will have been worth it.”
“I didn’t want Olivia’s death to be in vain”: Emma McLeod, 57
“It had never occurred to me that something could go wrong with my pregnancy. With only four weeks to go until the birth, I’d been well looked after and the pregnancy itself had been fairly unremarkable, with no complications. Yet, as I stood looking at my massive belly in the bathroom mirror, I realised I hadn’t felt the baby move in a while.
Later, when I arrived at the hospital for an ultrasound, I remember that I kept apologising for wasting everyone’s time. Then, when I was told that they couldn’t find a heartbeat, I must have gone into shock: I just couldn’t understand what they meant by ‘no heartbeat’.
There was no sound in the room when Olivia was born in the early hours of the morning, only a heavy stillness. The induced labour had been excruciating and, although I didn’t know whether I’d been carrying a boy or a girl, I was fearful of what a dead baby would look like and told staff to take it away. It was only when a nurse said, ‘Okay, we’ll just wrap her up’ that my heart melted and I reached for her.
“I didn’t want Olivia’s death to be in vain”: Emma McLeod has devoted her life to stillbirth advocacy since her daughter’s death.
She was the most perfect baby girl and I felt an abundance of love for her immediately. I just couldn’t believe she wasn’t breathing, or that there wasn’t anything anyone could do to help us. The heartbreak is impossible to articulate.
No one wanted to talk about stillbirth in the early 2000s; it was one of those things the medical profession dismissed as ‘a sad thing that happens sometimes’. There wasn’t a lot of research being done, or information being shared with parents.
I didn’t want Olivia’s death to be in vain, so I spent three years doing research and launched Stillbirth Foundation Australia in 2005, not just as a way of providing support to other parents in similar situations but also to raise money for research.
It’s parents who drive Stillbirth Foundation Australia; we’re the ones funding research, and through that we understand more about genetics (my own mother had a stillbirth back in the early 1970s, which was never talked about) and other factors that can come into play, such as side sleeping.
The thing I’m proudest of, however, is that we’ve made it okay to talk about stillbirth. The grief of losing your baby never goes away, but it helps to be able to reach out to others in similar situations. There’s strength in the community.”
“We promised we would honour her final wish”: Fiona Riewoldt, 68
“Maddie was diagnosed with a bone marrow failure syndrome called aplastic anaemia just after her 21st birthday. She had always been energetic and sporty, but had grown tired, constantly falling asleep on the couch, and bruised easily. When a test revealed Maddie’s blood count to be dangerously low, we were shocked. But nothing could have prepared us for what lay ahead.
It took a long time for Maddie to be diagnosed and at that time there was very little information available. I can still remember taking her to the cancer centre for a blood transfusion and being handed a pamphlet on leukaemia because there was no patient information on bone marrow failure syndromes. Soon, she was receiving blood or blood products up to three times a week.
Maddie fought bravely for five years, enduring multiple bone marrow transplants and hundreds of transfusions. When her fight was ending, our family made a promise that we would honour her final wish – to ensure that nobody else went through what she did. Maddie Riewoldt’s Vision was born five months later.
Fiona Riewoldt wanted to honour her daughter Maddie’s dying wish to find a cure for bone marrow failure syndrome.Credit: Mike Tarr
Starting a charity – particularly when you’re lost in a sea of grief – is no easy matter, but we were lucky that Maddie’s doctor, Professor David Ritchie (who now chairs our scientific advisory committee), was only too happy to help. Our goal is to achieve better outcomes and support for patients living with bone marrow failure syndromes, and ultimately find a cure.
Over the last 10 years we’ve accomplished so much. We’ve committed $9.7 million to research, supported 36 medical research projects in partnership with medical research institutes, hospitals and universities, and been able to provide support to more than 160 patients and their families across Australia.
Demand for support has grown so much in the last year that we’ve also recently expanded our tele-support service, hiring our second nurse. I’m particularly proud of Maddie’s Month, our partnership with Flavorite and Coles through which we’re aiming to raise $100,000 this year, a sum that will take the total raised over the past decade to $1 million. It’s an incredible milestone that Maddie would be so proud of.
Maddie’s gone in the physical sense, but the work we do allows her to live on. I feel a great sense of pride and a certain level of peace knowing her name is spoken every day. And her fight and bravery continue to inspire people. I know that many of her school friends still give blood each month, while I fight on in the hope we’ll find a cure.”
To get involved in Maddie’s Month, buy specially marked packs of Flavorite Tiny Toms, Tiny Caps and Cherry Truss Tomatoes in Coles during November.
For miscarriage, stillbirth and newborn death support, call Red Nose Australia on 1300 308 307.
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