Stillbirths May Be More Common in U.S. Than Previously Known—Study |
The stillbirth rate in the United States may be higher than previously known, recently published research has found.
A team at Harvard University reviewed more than 18,800 instances of stillbirth, which is defined as fetal death at or after 20 weeks of gestation. In more than 27 percent of these cases, the researchers could not identify a clinical risk factor like high blood pressure during pregnancy, gestational diabetes, or decreased fetal movement.
The study, which looked at private health insurance claims for births from 2016-2022 found that there are about 6.8 stillbirths per every 1,000 deliveries—roughly 18 percent higher than federal data from a similar time period, which estimated 5.73 stillbirths per every 1,000 deliveries. The rate was double for Black patients, who had a stillbirth rate of 10.34 for every 1,000 deliveries.
The peer-reviewed research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in October 2025, also showed that nearly 30 percent of the documented cases occurred in people with no personal health condition, life circumstance, or fetal medical problem that would have put them at a higher risk for a stillbirth.
“The fact that we aren’t able to fully reconcile these numbers suggests a need for better data on stillbirth, and infrastructure and resources to collect better data,” Haley Sullivan, the paper’s primary author, told Rewire News Group.
RNG spoke with Sullivan,........