Miscarriage Matters care packages
Miscarriage Matters NZ will be hosting a Butterfly Fun Run during International Baby Loss Awareness Week (9th to 15th
October) to celebrate the launch of the organisation. Miscarriage Matters NZ was founded by two sisters from North
Canterbury, Aleisha Black and Corrine Christian, after Corrine experienced a miscarriage in 2018.Corrine Christian and Aleisha Black
“Through our experience we found that there was a great need for an organisation dedicated solely to miscarriage that
could join all of the current services together and promote education, support and understanding around miscarriage.
Miscarriage Matters NZ started out as a real family affair with our aunties and cousins and old school friends all
getting involved, our Mum is Treasurer!” - Corrine Christian
“We at Miscarriage Matters NZ all have loved ones who have been in the position of experiencing a miscarriage, and we
want to put in place what we wish had been in place for them. There are some really practical and straightforward things
that we can do to make things better. ” - Aleisha Black
Miscarriage Matters NZ are distributing over 50 care packages every month for women who experience miscarriage in
Canterbury and the West Coast. There is lots of handmade love in the care packages with Miscarriage Matters NZ
volunteers making much of what goes into them. Miscarriage Matters NZ has also teamed up with Sands Canterbury for the
care packages distributed through Christchurch hospital.
“We think that it is important to put that personal care into our care packages. If anyone receives a care package from
us and then looks us up, they can see that somebody has sewn that bag, or made that keyring, or collected those seeds
from their garden, and that those products have been donated by caring companies. It just helps to get that message
across that your experience matters. We wish that we could give them to everyone in New Zealand but we are just getting
started.” - Aleisha
Miscarriage Matters NZ has a beautiful website packed full of practical miscarriage information:
miscarriagematters.org.nz.
“My husband and I were doing a lot of internet searching when my miscarriage was in progress and most of the information
we found was how to cope with the grief of losing a baby, which is great, but I wanted to know more about the
physiological things to expect, and practical information like, what should we have on hand at home? When the website
launched and I called Aleisha to thank her for all of her work and just started bawling my eyes out as I knew how much
it would have helped me and I was so proud of her work and knew it would be able to help so many women and their
families.” - Corrine
The annual international Baby Loss Awareness Week is an opportunity to honour the lives that have been lost in
miscarriage, still-birth, or infancy. The Butterfly Fun Run will take place on Sunday 11 October from 9.30am at The
Groynes, Northwood, Christchurch and virtually at #MMNZFUNRUN. Hurunui Mayor, Marie Black, will start the event.
Corrine Christian, co-founder of Miscarriage Matters NZ, said: “We hope that our Butterfly Fun Run will become an annual
event where families and supporters can come together as a community, in a positive celebration of the little lives that
have touched our hearts.”