How a bereaved mother is using jewellery to commemorate unborn babies
London woman Jess Roberts has transformed her personal experience with pregnancy loss into a venture aimed at breaking the stigma surrounding miscarriage.
After losing her baby at seven weeks in July 2023, Ms Roberts sought a tangible way to commemorate her child and process her grief. Unable to find suitable mementos for early pregnancy loss, she commissioned a ring for herself.
The ring featured a small blueberry crafted from sterling silver, representing the size of her baby at the time of the miscarriage.
Following two difficult surgeries, including a near-sepsis complication, Ms Roberts realised other women might share her need for remembrance and support.
This inspired her to create Little Santi Designs, a jewellery company specialising in gestation indicator pendants. These pendants range from a poppy seed, symbolising the very beginning of life, to a banana, representing a 21-week pregnancy.
Ms Roberts’ designs resonate deeply with women who have experienced similar losses. Since leaving her wellness job in February 2024 to focus on Little Santi Designs full-time, she now receives about 150 orders per week from grieving women worldwide.
“I wanted to do something to commemorate this little life and not be forced to brush past it or act like it never happened,” Ms Roberts explained.
She believes there’s still a stigma around discussing miscarriage openly, driven by a fear of making others uncomfortable.
However, she says that “support is out there though and you shouldn’t feel like you have to bottle it up or not speak about it”.
Ms Roberts’s own miscarriage was silent, meaning the baby had died but hadn’t been physically miscarried. She underwent two dilation and curettage surgeries in August 2023.
“Unfortunately, mine went wrong and I had to be rushed back in to have a second one, it was all very traumatic,” Jess explained.
“I was quite poorly and quite close to sepsis.”
After the second operation, Jess was able to make a full recovery but the experience quickly left her wanting to find a way to “commemorate” the loss.
“I wanted something for myself to show the baby had existed.”
Jess said she started to look online but found nothing seemed fitting for her early pregnancy loss.
“They have lovely things for later on but when I was looking, it just felt like there was nothing truly special enough,” she explained.
After going onto her pregnancy app, Flo, to switch it back to “not pregnant”, which she said was “horrible”, Jess noticed the app displayed the size her baby had grown to – which was illustrated by different fruits for each week.
“That’s the only thing I actually knew as a constant, the whole way through and even that early on,” she said.
Jess designed a ring with a sterling silver blueberry pendant for her to wear which symbolised the size her baby had grown to at seven weeks.
She then realised other bereaved would-be mothers could also benefit from her creation.
“I never really thought of it as a business idea, it was just a little passion project,” she said.
“I just thought there must be so many other people in the same position as me.”
Jess then designed 18 early gestation indicators for jewellery pendants, concentrating on rings.
A poppy seed pendant symbolises the very start of life, a sesame seed represents five weeks, a lentil shows six weeks and a blueberry is used for seven weeks.
Jess also selected a strawberry to represent 10 weeks, a peach for 14 weeks and a mango for 19 weeks – going up to 21 weeks which is symbolised by a banana.
In December 2023, Jess launched the website for her company named Little Santi Designs – a nod to the baby she lost which she would have called Santi if it was a boy.
In January 2024, one of Jess’ TikTok videos showcasing the business went viral, causing it to boom in popularity until she was able to leave her former job in wellness in February and work on her company full time.
Jess now receives about 150 orders each week and the rings, which are made in India and are priced at £38 for sterling silver or £64 for gold, have been shipped all around the world.
While Jess first hand-packaged each ring herself from her home, she has since enlisted the help of a warehouse based in Birmingham – but she will still stamp every box herself.
On the response from her customers, Jess said it has been “overwhelming”.
“I didn’t expect to find a community with it,” she said.
“The best bit has been people supporting each other and they can be from opposite sides of the world – it’s become a really nice support system.”
Jess has also created a ring for those undergoing IVF treatment, symbolised by three small circles within a larger one, and she has also received requests for later pregnancy losses and male jewellery.
“My ultimate goal now is that everyone feels there is something for them,” she said.
