A HAMPSHIRE mum has discovered that a hospital buried the body of the son she thought had been cremated 23 years ago.

When family reasons prompted Sylvia to look into the birth of her stillborn child, she never dreamed she would discover he had actually been buried with eight other infants.

The 55-year-old secretary from Chandler's Ford, who wishes to be known only by her first name, has decided to speak out to help others who suspect the same may have happened to them.

After she gave birth to twin boys in March 1980 at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester, Sylvia says she was led to believe that her one stillborn baby was going to be cremated and his ashes scattered on the grounds.

Sylvia never forgot the little boy, who had spina bifida and other deformities, but she got on with raising his remaining twin and a daughter, now 25.

It was a shock to be told more than two decades later by the hospital records office that her son had actually been buried in Magdalen Hill cemetery in Winchester in a multiple grave. A ceremony had even been conducted at her son's burial, which she says she was never invited to.

When she finally visited the grave 23 years later she discovered it was unmarked apart from a faded plastic flower lying nearby.

"I was extremely upset. It felt very weird,'' she said. ''I asked for the bodies to be exhumed but the council explained this was not possible and I can understand their decision not to do this. The baby needs to rest in peace.

"When I rang the records department at the hospital, they simply told me 'that was the way that things were done back then'."

Sylvia has now arranged a private ceremony for her baby at the cemetery next month and has marked the grave with a plaque.

She has decided not to take legal action against the hospital, stressing she has no grudge against the hospital's former policy.

Winchester and Eastleigh NHS Trust have expressed their regret over Sylvia's story.

A spokeswoman said: "It is very unusual that a baby would have been cremated so I don't know why Sylvia thinks that was said to her. It is highly unlikely that there are other women who were told their baby was cremated when it was buried, because it has never been our policy to cremate.

"There might be women who at the time said they didn't want anything to do with the burial but have since wanted to find out more about it."

When asked why Sylvia was not notified about the date of the burial, the spokeswoman explained: "It might have been that someone thought they were acting in her best interest by handling it for her. It's so difficult to say without the notes in black and white.

"There is no way we could find the number of times this happened unless women come forward and we find out it happened a lot.

"I have spoken to staff who worked here at that time who say it would have been unusual for the parents not to be invited. For a start, contact has to be maintained because there are things like death certificates that have to be dealt with. We do feel, therefore, that it would have been unusual."

A Winchester City Council spokesman confirmed that between 1980 and 1983, 50 stillborn babies were buried at Magdalen Hill cemetery, Alresford Road, on behalf of the Royal Hampshire County Hospital.

Mark Green, from Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust's bereavement care team, said: "The majority of babies are buried, but certainly by the 1980s we were much more inclusive and were talking to families about what they wanted.

"If a family had expressed a wish for a cremation then that was carried out, and if a family had expressed a wish for a burial, then that was carried out.

"If they didn't express either way then it would be a burial because if they come back at a later stage and say 'What happened to baby?' then they've got somewhere to go."

A spokeswoman for the charity Cruse Bereavement Care said the news would have caused a major shock to Sylvia.

She said: "It alters the pattern of bereavement. Even though time goes by, it does live on in their memory.

"You come to terms by knowing, as far as you can, exactly what happened. So after 23 years to be given information that contradicts what you've always thought is very painful."