Since the week, a series of videos have been trending both on TikTok and Twitter about a purple Butterfly.
In the video clips, you see a woman in an anime style character and while on the scene, she gives birth to a baby and just right there, the purple Butterfly appears.
You can see that the butterfly appearing seems to mean a very sad meaning and some users are slamming the videos for being insensitive, while others see that they are spreading a very important message. What do you think this means? Let’s talk about it below;
WHAT DOES THE PURPLE BUTTERFLY MEAN?
A purple butterfly actually has a very important meaning as it is a symbol used when a woman gives birth to multiple babies, like twins, triplets or quadruplets, but one or more of them did not survive.
When this happens to a woman, the purple butterfly sticker is often placed on the door or cot of patients who have experienced this loss as a sign of the life of the life of the lost sibling and make others aware that they have lost a child. The Purple butterfly simple means a sign to show the world that a child had flown away from earth.
THE STORY BEHIND THE PURPLE BUTTERFLY
The use of the purple butterfly for these sad events dates back to April 2016 in the United Kingdom.
The story goes that it was when a couple in the UK called Millie Smith and Lewis Cann gave birth to twin girls, Callie and Skye and sadly Skye passed away just three hours after her birth due to a neural tube defect which inspired Millie and Lewis to create the Purple Butterfly Project.
As the other twin, Callie, continued to be treated in the Intensive Care Unit due to being born at 30 weeks, the parents found that nurses were unaware that they actually had two babies.
One day, a woman in the hospital even said to Millie that she was “so lucky” that she did not have twins, so she decided she needed a way to make people aware that she had lost a twin.
So, she began using a purple butterfly as a symbol for her loss, which shows that the child has “flown away” from earth. The colour purple was used as it can represent both girls and boys.
Now, the project has spread across the UK and the world and purple butterflies can be seen in hospitals all over the globe.