Stillbirth: Understanding Maternal Experiences

Stillbirth, defined as the loss of a baby at or after 20 weeks of pregnancy, is devastating for expectant parents and their families. Tragically, about 21,000 stillbirths a year occur in the United States. 

To try and understand the impact of a pregnancy loss and to better support birthing parents going through this trauma, it’s important to gather information from individuals who’ve recently experienced a stillbirth. However, most states do not currently contact them for self-reporting.

The CDC Foundation is partnering with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Reproductive Health to award funding to learn more about the maternal experiences of a stillbirth. 

Funded jurisdictions will learn about: 
•    Prenatal and postnatal care
•    Social support and stress
•    Grief and bereavement support
•    Services offered by hospitals after a stillbirth occurs
•    Tests that may have been offered after the stillbirth
•    Use of alcohol, tobacco and e-cigarettes
•    Physical abuse
•    Chronic health conditions of the mother
•    Health insurance coverage

The jurisdictions receiving support are: 
•    Georgia Department of Public Health 
•    Ohio Department of Health 
•    Philadelphia Department of Public Health 
•    Utah Department of Health and Human Services 

In general, this project will build the capacity for surveillance of maternal self-reported stillbirth experiences through:  
a) Identifying and funding jurisdictions to implement surveillance of maternal self-reported experiences from individuals who have recently experienced a stillbirth 
b) Providing capacity building to jurisdictions to improve data collection and engage with disproportionately impacted communities to understand the contextual factors for stillbirth and assess opportunities to standardize and improve stillbirth reporting 
c) Supporting collaborative learning within and across jurisdictions 
d) Supporting dissemination of timely, high-quality data on maternal self-report experiences following a stillbirth

This project is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $1,244,270 with 100 percent funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, CDC/HHS or the U.S. Government.