MPs were moved to tears during a highly emotional Commons debate as colleagues shared their heart-breaking experiences of losing their babies.

Labour's Vicky Foxcroft delivered the "hardest speech I have ever had to write or deliver" as she spoke publicly for the first time about the death of her five-day-old daughter Veronica.

She paused to take deep breaths while telling the Commons about her experiences as a teenager.

Carol Monaghan, the MP for Glasgow North West, struggled to speak as she explained how it was "very, very difficult" to sit next to women holding scan photographs shortly after she miscarried at 16 weeks.

Her SNP colleague Patricia Gibson told MPs how she was still haunted by the mistakes which led to her own "horrific experience of stillbirth".

Breaking down, she said: "I know as many, many others do, the horror of losing a baby. My baby Kenneth would have been seven years old this Saturday, the very day when we reach the culmination of baby loss awareness week."

The MP for North Ayrshire and Arran called for coroners in Scotland and England to be allowed to investigate stillbirths when merited to address errors in care. Such an investment, she argued, could help reduce the number of baby deaths in future.

Conservative MP Byron Davies recalled how it felt "almost an embarrassment" in the 1980s for him and his wife to talk about losing a child.

He said they were unable to discuss the grief and sadness from the "devastating experience" as the MP for Gower stressed the need for people to share their experiences.

His fellow Tory backbencher Victoria Prentis broke down in tears as she urged improvements in care for pregnant and expectant mothers.

The Banbury MP lost her son soon after birth and nearly died after she was struck down by pre-eclampsia and the life-threatening pregnancy complications known as HELLP syndrome.

Labour's Sharon Hodgson also recalled her daughter's stillbirth at 23-and-a-half weeks, explaining: "Because she was born dead, although I always class her as a stillbirth, officially it was put down as a miscarriage and I wasn't given a death certificate.

"It was another trauma, on top of the trauma I'd already gone through, because then on paper it read miscarriage."

Special praise from MPs was reserved for Ms Foxcroft's courage as she sought to break the taboos surrounding baby deaths.

In a backbench business debate to mark baby loss week, Ms Foxcroft, who represents Lewisham and Deptford, said she had been unsure about whether to raise such a personal experience.

After apologising to her friends for not speaking about it with them over the years, the London MP said of Veronica: "I still love her. She is always in my thoughts. All these years afterwards. Even if I don't talk about her all the time.

"I don't not talk about her because I'm embarrassed. I'm not. It's because it hurts so much to do so.

"I don't have children now because I lived with the fear of the same thing happening and I just couldn't do it twice."

Opening the debate, Conservative MP Antoinette Sandbach warned ministers that baby loss was an "injustice" suffered by far too many UK families as MPs called for a major campaign to raise awareness

Ms Sandbach, who lost her five-day-old son Sam in 2009, labelled miscarriages a "silent killer" and cautioned that too little support was offered to the estimated 200,000 mothers and their families affected each year.

Philip Dunne, the UK health minister, said he had been humbled by the most moving debate that he had ever participated in, noting how there was "barely a dry eye in the House".

While he said the country was a very safe one in which to have a baby, he acknowledged more could be done and “we, as a Government, are determined to do so".

He told MPs: "Having not gone through this experience myself, I can scarcely comprehend how devastating this must be for parents to lose a baby and it is absolutely important that parents receive appropriate care and support in as sensitive way as possible when this occurs."

Mr Dunne added: "It is important that we try, as a Government, to drive improvement in outcomes and I'd like to reassure honourable members that this Government is fully committed to reducing the number of babies who die during pregnancy or in the neo-natal period and to supporting those families who are bereaved."