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Amanda Holden has paid tribute to her stillborn son Theo on what would have been his 14th birthday.
The Britain’s Got Talent judge, 53, was seven months into her pregnancy with her music producer husband Chris Hughes when their son died and she had to deliver him by C-section in 2011.
On Saturday (1 February) Holden commemorated her son on Instagram, writing: “Our beautiful boy would have been 14 today.
”Last year, the Heart Radio presenter shared a photo of a lit candle to mark the day of Theo’s birth. “You would have become a teenager today,” Holden wrote, alongside a red love heart emoji.
The TV star was 28 weeks pregnant when a scan revealed that Theo’s heart had stopped. Holden then had to make the devastating choice to deliver her son via a C-section.
In 2020, Holden looked back on the moment she was told that the baby had no heartbeat in BBC’s Dear NHS Superstars special, while in hospital.
“Luckily for us, an obstetrician was coming past and [the midwife] Jackie said to the obstetrician, ‘Please can you go in, I can’t hear the patient’s baby’s heartbeat’, and then I heard this guttural screaming,” she recalled.
“It was the most bizarre thing that’s ever happened to me because it was me. I didn’t know I was doing it. I had no control over myself, I thought it was another person making the noise.”
In 2022, the presenter added on Heart Radio: “I held him in my arms and I said goodbye, basically. But I couldn’t have done it without the incredible team around us. My husband was so strong and so amazing but they got him through it too.”
“And then the days and months afterwards, the same team of people checked on us every single day and it’s not because I’m off the telly or famous or anything like that.
“I believe they’d have extended that care to any woman, any family, in my situation.”
She added: “I’ll literally do anything for the National Health Service because they got me through it, they got Chris through it and I now thankfully have two healthy girls and a little boy who is still part of the family but just not here.”
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can contact stillbirth and neonatal death charity Sands on 0808 164 3332 or email [email protected]. The helpline is open from 9.30am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday, and until 9.30pm on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.You can also find bereavement support at The Lullaby Trust by calling 0808 802 6868 or emailing [email protected].
