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Stillbirths: a story of tragic neglect across the developing world

Giving birth to a stillborn infant is one of the most heart-breaking and tragic events for any parent and their family. These babies die either during pregnancy or during the process of giving birth. Deaths earlier than 28 weeks are called miscarriages. Of the stillbirths that happen across the globe, 98% occur in low- and middle-income countries. The World Health Organisation has stressed the importance of ending these preventable deaths. Its Every Newborn action plan, launched in 2014, sets a global target to reduce stillbirth rates to ten for every 1000 births by 2035.

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 After a Stillbirth, Tests Can Help Pinpoint the Cause

Some 26,000 women in the United States give birth to a stillborn child each year. It’s a harrowing experience for parents, and many eventually want to know what went wrong, in part to avoid going through a similar experience in the future. But in the days after delivery, when tests to search for a cause must be conducted, doctors are often hesitant to suggest them, and grief-stricken parents often reluctant to permit them.

 Understanding the Risks for Stillbirth, and Coping if It Happens to You

Stillbirth is rare but has a huge impact on families. It’s important to know the risk factors and warning signs.

Articles of Interest

Stillbirth Facts

We believe knowledge is power, and when we make the world a safer place for maternal health care, everyone wins. We have an intentional focus to reduce the differences in health outcomes affecting those communities most at risk of enduring a stillbirth.

After a Stillbirth, a Silent Delivery Room

Dr. Eleni Michailidis, 38, gave birth to a stillborn son, Alexander, in February. Stillbirth is not uncommon in the United States, affecting 1 in 160 pregnancies, but the experience is rarely discussed. Dr. Michailidis’s narrative has been condensed and edited for space and clarity.

Air Pollution Is Linked to Stillbirths—Especially in Poorer Countries

About 140 million babies were born globally last year—the equivalent of adding an entire new Russia to the world’s population. Not counted among those typically blessed events are the number of families whose pregnancies end tragically. According to the United Nations Interagency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, about 2 million pregnancies around the world end in stillbirth each year. The causes of natal death are numerous—from fetal abnormalities to labor complications to maternal hypertension to infections to placental malformation.

From Womb to Womb

Worldwide, women suffer an estimated 2.65 million stillbirths each year. Despite those huge numbers, we only understand some of the factors that are responsible. In low- and middle-income countries (where most of the world’s stillbirths occur), diseases like malaria can put pregnant women at risk of stillbirths. In wealthier countries, the biggest risks include smoking and obesity. But these factors only go partway to explaining why some women have stillbirths, leaving many cases unaccounted for. The benefits that would come from that knowledge could be enormous.

New Programs Help Parents Cope With Stillbirth and Infant Death

Now, as researchers learn more about the traumatic effects of such deaths on families, more hospitals are creating programs to help them cope. So-called perinatal-loss coordinators train staff to provide compassionate care and guidance for both practical and emotional issues.

Recovering After a Stillbirth: "The Baby I Lost…and the Life She Gave Me"

Katharine O'Connell White was almost seven months pregnant the day she passed out cold at work. When she woke up in intensive care, she didn't need a doctor to tell her how bad it was--she's an ob-gyn herself, and she knew. What she learned next they don't teach in medical school: how to put the pieces of a shattered heart back together again.

Stillbirth: Your Stories

Few families are prepared when a baby dies prior to delivery. Here, parents who have navigated this difficult experience shared their insights.

Stillbirths Now Outnumber Deaths Among Infants, Study Finds

For the first time, stillbirths have slightly outnumbered deaths among infants before their first birthdays, a new report has found, ending a long period in which infant deaths were higher.

Stillborn Photos Are a Way for Parents to Grieve a Complicated Loss

“The loss of a baby, it just magnifies how uncomfortable people are with death because it goes against the natural order of things,” said Gina Harris, chief executive officer for Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, a nonprofit that connects grieving parents with photographers who specialize in bereavement photos surrounding the death of a baby.

The tragedy of stillbirth: 'An unfathomable amount of heartbreak'

Why it is so hard to talk about stillbirth? It is always hard to know what to say when someone dies but many people choose to say nothing. Boyle says the fact that so many people struggle with what to say to grieving parents following stillbirth shows that “at some level they do know how utterly, absolutely devastating the experience is”. But stillbirth awareness is growing and improved strategies for reducing it are within reach.

Through 'The Loss Mother's Stone,' mothers share their grief from losing a child to stillbirth

I've always heard that photography could be therapeutic, and after losing both of my parents within 364 days of one another, I knew this to be true. I remembered this healing power when I was 13 months postpartum with my healthy baby son and deep in depression. His birth was traumatic; I was invisible, and my pain went ignored for days at the hospital. My heart weighed so heavy in my chest that it felt as if I was drowning. I needed to feel less alone, so I turned to Facebook and asked others to share their experiences of birth trauma. "Are you looking for stories about stillbirth?" one grandmother asked, and that is how The Loss Mother's Stone began.

We Need to Talk About Stillbirth

Stillbirth is ten times more common than cot death, yet it's often not talked about. It remains something of a taboo. Every day in the UK, nine babies are stillborn. For almost a third, no cause of death is found.

When A Baby Dies

Unbeknownst to many, stillbirths cause approximately 24,000 deaths a year in the United States resulting in approximately 2000 babies dying each month - more than deaths resulting from SIDS and prematurity combined. Even with numbers like these, stillbirth remains one of the most understudied and underfunded public health issues today.

Why don't people talk more about stillbirths?

Stillbirth - the death of a baby after 24 weeks of pregnancy or during birth - is not common in the UK. But it is more common than many people think.

The Unique Grief of Losing Your First Born to Stillbirth

My first born was stillborn at full term. We went to the hospital expecting to give birth to our baby girl who was four days overdue and who we felt move that evening before we went to sleep. Arriving at the hospital, we soon learned that her soul had somehow slipped away that night.

Resources

MISS Foundation

The MISS Foundation, established in 1996 by Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, is an international 501(c)3, volunteer based organization providing C.A.R.E. [counseling, advocacy, research, and education] services to families experiencing the death of a child.

Sands

Sands is the miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death charity. We operate across Australia, supporting anyone affected by the death of a baby; working to improve the care bereaved parents receive by healthcare professionals and breaking the silence and taboo of baby death in today's society.

Still Aware

Still Aware is driving change and working tirelessly towards reducing preventable stillbirth. Change prior to the event. Change through education of clinicians and expectant families. We continue to work with key researchers in the field to gather and report data of care provisions already offered internationally, but which are not offered to Australian patients.

Still Mothers

We realized the great need for a positive resource in the babyloss community that focused on the unique needs of mothers with no living children. A place to connect, process, and seek healing with other mothers who understand the heartache of being a mother, but not being able to mother in a traditional way. Because we are all Still Mothers.

Still Standing Magazine

In the face of loss and infertility, our mission is to show the world that we are still standing. Holding fast to resilience and hope. Our mission is to help you embrace life for everything that it is after experiencing the loss of a child or infertility.

Stillbirthday

Stillbirthday Global Network is an internationally trusted benevolent organization whose philanthropic mission is simply to doula: to nurture sources of perinatal bereavement, strengthen skills of healthcare professionals and increase healthy engagement of perinatal related needs among communities.

1st Breath

1st Breath is committed to providing education, advocacy, and public awareness of stillbirth in addition to assisting families and professionals dealing with the death of a baby.

Action for Stillbirth Awareness & Prevention Coalition

To raise stillbirth awareness, unify voices, and accelerate prevention efforts in the United States.

First Candle

First Candle is committed to the elimination of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Sudden Unexpected Infant Death and preventable Stillbirths through education and research while providing support for grieving families who have suffered a loss.

Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth

GAPPS' mission is to lead a collaborative, global effort to increase awareness and accelerate innovative research and interventions that will improve maternal, newborn and child health outcomes.

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

NILMDTS trains, educates, and mobilizes professional quality photographers to provide beautiful heirloom portraits to families facing the untimely death of an infant. We believe these images serve as an important step in the family's healing process by honoring the child's legacy.

PSANZ Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Alliance

PSANZ-SANDA aims to reduce stillbirths and neonatal deaths in Australia and New Zealand and to ensure families receive the best possible care and support through the promotion of high quality collaborative research and best clinical practice.

Star Legacy Foundation

To increase awareness, support research, promote education, and encourage advocacy and family support regarding stillbirth, pregnancy loss, and neonatal death.

Stillbirth Foundation Australia

Today, The Stillbirth Foundation Australia is recognised nationally as a leading voice on stillbirth and represents the voices of thousands of Australian families who have been touched by stillbirth.

The Compassionate Friends

The mission of The Compassionate Friends: When a child dies, at any age, the family suffers intense pain and may feel hopeless and isolated. The Compassionate Friends provides highly personal comfort, hope, and support to every family experiencing the death of a son or a daughter, a brother or a sister, or a grandchild, and helps others better assist the grieving family.

The TEARS Foundation

The TEARS Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that seeks to compassionately lift a financial burden from families who have lost a baby by providing funds to assist with the cost of burial or cremation services.

Babies Remembered

We offer— ◾Understanding about the depth of despair, healing light, information, and hope to grieving families facing the darkness after the loss of a precious baby, no matter size or age, and to all who are touched by such tragic losses. ◾Help in finding support, understanding, compassionate care, guidance, resources, networking links, speakers, perinatal loss consultants, excellent standards of bereavement care, literature, and so much more.

Born Still but Still Born

This is our journey through life after loss always remembering Curtis and taking absolute joy in each day we have been given.

Still Breathing

Healing grief after pregnancy & child loss.

Stillborn. Still a Mother

I'm Amelia. I'm 20 and I live in Wiltshire with my partner, Mattie and my little puppy Olive. My first baby, Freddie was born sleeping on the 23rd of June 2015. I'm using this blog to keep his memories alive and celebrate the short time spent with him